Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

SUPREME COURT (PRIZE, ETC., DEPOSIT ACCOUNT, 1939–42)

Account ordered,
of the Receipts and Payments of the Accounting Officer of the Vote for the Supreme Court on behalf of the Admiralty Division in Prize for the period from 3rd September, 1939, to 31st March, 1942 with copies of the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

Factory Inspection (Women and Children)

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Minister of Labour to what extent the number of violations of the Factory Act by employers in respect of women and young persons employed in industry is on the increase; and whether his inspectors are able effectively to check such tendencies?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Statistics on the point are not available, but I see no reason why the factory inspectors, as a result of their inspections and with the proper co-operation of responsible representatives of the workpeople in reporting alleged violations, should not be able to check any tendency to an increase.

Mr. Davies: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is satisfied that with the enormous growth in the number of persons employed in factories, he has a sufficient number of inspectors to see that there are no violations of the law in this connection?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir, I do not think the inspectors are numerous enough, but I have a man-power problem as well, and I cannot increase their numbers beyond the present numbers.

Farm Workers, Scotland

Mr. Boothby: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that there is a serious shortage of labour on the farms in Scotland; and whether he will take steps to encourage Scottish girls to join the Land Army instead of transferring them to work in England?

Mr. Bevin: I am sure that, as was to be expected in view of the expanding agricultural programme, there is in Scotland a deficiency of skilled male agricultural workers. My Department has consistently encouraged recruitment for the Scottish Women's Land Army, and the rate of enrolment has at all times been adequate to meet the demands made on it. At the end of February there was a reserve of about 500 members available for employment.

Women, Clydeside and Tyneside

Sir Robert Rankin: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the need of the employment of women in still greater numbers in suitable work in shipbuilding yards, repair yards and marine engineering works on the Clyde and Tyneside, he will take steps to remedy this deficiency?

Mr. Bevin: There has been a very considerable increase in the numbers of women employed in shipbuilding and marine engineering in recent months in the districts to which my hon. Friend refers. My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty and myself are taking every opportunity of urging employers to take on more female labour and are confident that this increase will continue.

Industrial Catering Trade

Mr. Burke: asked the Minister of Labour why the application of the Essential Work Order has been delayed in the case of the industrial catering trade, which is covered by a National Joint Industrial Council?

Mr. Bevin: Discussions on this question are proceeding. At present I have nothing to add to my reply of 21st January to the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox).

Mr. Burke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that discussions have been going on since August last, and that there is a great desire among canteen managers to have this matter settled so that they can keep their staffs?

Mr. Bevin: I know there is a desire by the canteen contractors to have it settled, but I am supplying labour to run the canteens, though I have not applied the Essential Work Order to industrial canteens. I do not think there is any real shortage.

Mr. Burke: Can my right hon. Friend say why it has taken so long?

Mr. Bevin: The proposal put to me conflicts with the Canteens Order which makes an employer responsible for the canteen equally with the rest of his factory, and it is a matter of very great difficulty for me to apply the Essential Work Order to a canteen, which really makes it a shop within a factory.

North Midland Region (Appointment)

Mr. William Brown: asked the Minister of Labour the age of the recently appointed assistant to the North Midland regional factory premises controller; and for what purposes he was ever directed for any national service work prior to his appointment by the Board of Trade?

Mr. Bevin: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to the man recently appointed a senior temporary assistant (technical) by the Factory and Storage Premises Control of the Board of Trade. His age is 36. He was registered under the National Service Acts as a yarn-merchant on his own account for the previous twelve years, joined the Police War Reserve in August, 1940, but was discharged for medical reasons which further resulted in his not being called up when medically examined for service in His Majesty's Forces. For the same reasons of health it proved impracticable to transfer him to more important work, and he has therefore at no time been directed to take up war work.

Mr. Brown: Will the Minister see that the machinery of his Department, especially the National Register, shall not be used to cover appointments which are quite indefensible in the national interest as this one was?

Mr. Bevin: I cannot accept the assertion that it was indefensible. I can only give the facts as I got them.

Sir Herbert Williams: Experience as a yarn merchant does not make him an expert on factories, does it?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir, but a yarn merchant sometimes finds his way to this House.

"Wings for Victory" Campaign (Man-Power)

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been drawn to the great use of man-power in connection with the "Wings for Victory" campaign; and whether he satisfied himself that the war effort would be commensurately forwarded?

Mr. Bevin: The man-power involved is almost entirely provided by voluntary workers and is, in my opinion, fully justified by the benefit to the war effort of a successful campaign.

Mr. Edwards: Does the Minister not realise that if the people give these millions of man-hours for these efforts, they will have to withhold them from some other voluntary efforts? Is it not in the nature of a fraud, because these sincere people will not add a single aeroplane but will double the cost of the money so lent to the Chancellor?

Mr. Bevin: That is a matter which I think the hon. Member should address to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

Mr. Edwards: I have addressed it to the Chancellor, but he is one of those yarn merchants.

Women's Land Army (Recruitment)

Sir Percy Hurd: asked the Minister of Labour what directions he has given to employment exchange managers for the recruiting of the Women's Land Army; and seeing that many farmers, as in Wiltshire, applied two months and more ago for women workers to be trained for the coming season, what steps are being taken to meet their urgent needs?

Mr. Bevin: Recruitment for the Women's Land Army was almost entirely suspended during the winter because then there was a reserve awaiting employment but has now been reopened. There is no restriction on the enrolment of suitable applicants except in certain industrial areas of acute labour shortage, and enrolments have now reached the figure of 1,000 a week. The allocation of members of the Women's Land Army to employment is not done by my Department.

Sir P. Hurd: Will the Minister impress on his local employment exchange officials that, owing to shipping and other difficulties, if we do not get more women on to the land and get them quickly, we are in for a food shortage of a very serious kind?

Mr. Bevin: I think my Department have done very well for agriculture—

Sir P. Hurd: No, they discourage it.

Mr. Bevin: Pardon me, I think they have done very well for agriculture. As evidence, there were 5,000 waiting to be taken up in November who were not taken up, which I think is the best justification of the claim. I would impress on agricultural committees this fact, that they cannot keep these reserves of labour operating on a county basis. They must deal with them nationally.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not one of the causes of discouragement from enrolment the shortage of cottages for agricultural workers, and will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to see that labour is made available for that purpose, which is all important?

Domestic Workers

Mrs. Cazalet Keir: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is yet in a position to make a statement with regard to the setting-up of a committee to investigate the best way to organise the service of domestic workers?

Mr. Bevin: I have not yet come to the conclusion that a committee will be necessary.

Unemployment

Mr. Foster: asked the Minister of Labour the latest total figure of unemployed registered at the employment exchanges; the number temporarily unemployed; the number unemployed for 12 months or over; the number fit for full employment; and the number certified only fit for selected employment for medical or physical reasons?

Mr. Bevin: At 18th January there were 99,017 persons registered at employment exchanges in Great Britain as unemployed, exclusive of 22,815 persons who had been classified by interviewing panels as unsuitable for ordinary employment. I am not in possession of statistics analysing the numbers under the headings specified by my hon. Friend, but it is known that

the great majority consisted of persons who were in course of changing from one job to another, unskilled labourers who, owing to age or physical disability, were suitable only for light work, married women or others not available for transfer to employment in other districts, and school leavers who had recently registered for employment but had not yet begun work. At 14th December last; when an occupational analysis was obtained of the persons then registering as unemployed, about 21,000 men were classified as general labourers for light unskilled work, and in the majority of these cases the men were so classified on grounds either of age or of physical disability.

Mr. Foster: While I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, is he not aware that there is a considerable number of those unemployed who have been unemployed for a long period and are fit for suitable, employment and who are having to live on unemployment benefit and public relief while, side by side with that, the Minister is directing women into employment who have family difficulties? Would it not be better to direct those people to whom I have referred to employment?

Mr. Bevin: If hon. Members know of specific cases, I shall be only too glad to look into them, but the thing is so scattered now and the numbers so small that it is really difficult to turn the whole Department on to it again. I would rather deal with specific cases to which hon. Members can call my attention and try to grapple with them.

Mr. Foster: Could not some general instruction be given to the managers at employment exchanges to try and place these people in employment?

Mr. Bevin: I assure you it is.

Mr. Thorne: What advantage would a man who is certified as unfit for employment get by registering at an employment exchange?

Mr. Bevin: Well, if I may make this confession, it is the only way I can give him a decent subsistence.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST-WAR EMPLOYMENT (SERVICE MEN)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give an assurance that everything possible


will be done, by giving a preference or otherwise, to see that fighting men who return from the war, particularly from distant theatres, will have a job to come back to?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Minister of Pensions when the sub-committee which he set up last year to consider the establishment of independent appeal tribunals will issue their report?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I regret that I can add nothing to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on 18th February.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISABILITY PENSIONS

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will now raise disability pensions, having regard to the fact that the present figure of 37s. 6d. a week for 100 per cent. disability is in the majority of cases less than the subsistence minimum recently approved in principle by His Majesty's Government?

Sir W. Womersley: The rate of 37s. 6d. a week quoted by the hon. and gallant Member applies to a single man who is 100 per cent. disabled. If the subsistence minimum to which he refers is that recommended in the Beveridge Report, the rate for a single man is 24s. a week.

Sir I. Fraser: Is not my right hon. Friend neglecting all the facts, and thereby giving a wrong impression to the House? Under the proposals of the Beveridge Report a married man with children would receive £2 a week plus children's allowances, whereas the young men now being totally disabled do not get a marriage allowance or children's allowance as 80 per cent. of them are too young to be married? Will he not give sympathetic consideration to the matter, because in the majority of cases the soldiers are getting less than the household subsistence minimum under the Beveridge Report?

Sir W. Womersley: I always give sympathetic consideration to every suggestion

that my hon. and gallant Friend makes to me, and I assure him that I will give sympathetic consideration to this.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA

Legislative Assembly, Delhi (Speeches in English)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for India what proportion of the speeches delivered in the Legislative Assembly at Delhi are delivered in the English language?

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): My hon. Friend may wish to refer to the Legislative Assembly Debates, which are regularly placed in the Library. The proceedings of the Assembly are conducted almost entirely in English, though the Rules of Procedure permit the use of Indian languages by members who are unacquainted with English.

Sir H. Williams: Is not the virtually universal use of English in the Legislative Assembly at Delhi due to the fact that English has created a nationhood sense in India?

Politicians (Conferences)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the conferences of non-Congress leaders at Delhi and Bombay and the pronouncements made on both occasions; and whether he has any statement to make, or intends to make any response to the pleas there made?

Mr. Amery: I have seen in to-day's Press the text of a resolution passed yesterday by a gathering of prominent Indian politicians who have been conferring at Bombay. I have no statement to make in regard to this, which, so far as I am aware, has not yet been communicated to the Government of India. The conference at Delhi made an appeal to the Prime Minister in connection with Mr. Gandhi's fast, whose reply, sent on 24th February, was published in the Press.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that these conferences at Delhi and Bombay are of great significance, seeing that representatives of all sections of Indian life are present? Will he not give these pronouncements very serious consideration, and if I put a Question down a week hence, will he give some reply then?

Mr. Amery: I fully appreciate the significance of these pronouncements.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an answer to the second part of my question?

Mr. Amery: I have no statement to make at present.

Mr. Sorensen: Will he be prepared to give a reply if I put down a Question a week hence?

Mr. Amery: Certainly, Sir.

Sir Stanley Reed: Have these distinguished men made any concrete suggestions for overcoming the difficulties that have emerged in these discussions?

Mr. Amery: Not so far as I am aware.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Detainees

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will reconsider the retention of British subjects in internment under Regulation 18B, in view of the unity of the British people, the small number of internees involved, and the capacity of the police and military authorities to keep in touch with their movements and supervise their activities if freed?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The case of every person detained under the Regulation is kept under review, and release is authorised in any case as soon as I am satisfied that it is no longer necessary, in the interests of national security, to continue detention. The much-reduced number of persons who are now so detained is a measure of the extent to which this policy has already been followed.

Sir T. Moore: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that these British subjects have been interned without trial nearly three years? Does he not consider that the time has come when, at any rate, it will be possible to have a complete revision, preferably by a new tribunal, of all the cases?

Mr. Morrison: Complete revisions are going on continuously, with the consequence that hundreds have been released. My hon. and gallant Friend says that

they have been detained three years, but the war is still proceeding, and we must still consider national security.

Sir T. Moore: Does my right hon. Friend not think that the fact that it has been found possible to release a considerable number means that they should not have been interned?

Mr. Morrison: I do not accept that for a moment.

Mr. Price: If the war situation gets more favourable for the Allies, will my right hon. Friend review these cases more favourably?

Mr. Morrison: That is exactly what I have been doing. The military factor has been a factor in considering releases, and it will be.

Air Raids (Shopping Facilities)

Sir Robert Rankin: asked the Home Secretary whether he is satisfied that the scheme recently issued by the Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence, North-western area, in respect of retailers' mutual aid schemes in the event of air attack, has met with adequate response from the retailers; and, if not, in view of the importance of re-establishing shopping facilities in areas affected by air raids, whether he will see that the scheme receives increased publicity?

Mr. H. Morrison: The general response in the region to the Regional Commissioner's circular, which supplemented advice to authorities from my Department and the Board of Trade, has been encouraging. I am satisfied that adequate publicity has been given to these schemes, but, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, the final responsibility rests with the shopkeepers themselves, and I welcome this opportunity of emphasising once more the importance which attaches to the preparation of local schemes of this kind.

National Fire Service (Canteens)

Mr. Touche: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the inconvenience, and sometimes hardship, experienced by uniformed personnel of the National Fire Service by their exclusion from various voluntary service canteens, which are open to members of the Armed Services; and whether, in view of the status of the National Fire Service as a war service, he will consider making further representations to the authorities concerned in order to get this ban lifted?

Mr. H. Morrison: The proposal that personnel of the National Fire Service who are posted away from their homes should have access to the voluntary Service canteens has already been discussed with the Service Departments and has received full and sympathetic consideration. I am assured, however, that the strain upon the canteens organisation is such that any extension of facilities to services other than those now catered for is out of the question, and, in the circumstances, I am afraid, that further representations in this matter would serve no useful purpose. Every effort is being made by the National Eire Service to develop its own welfare arrangements.

Anti-Aircraft Fire (Casualties)

Mr. Granville: asked the Home Secretary the number of civilian casualties in the London area from anti-aircraft shells and splinters during the enemy raid on London on 3rd March; and whether he will give a public warning of the dangers involved in standing in the open to watch the barrage during intensive anti-aircraft fire?

Mr. H. Morrison: In districts in which bombs and anti-aircraft ammunition are falling together it is not always possible accurately to attribute casualties to the one cause or the other, but it is known that on the occasion in question some of the casualties were due solely to the latter cause. While in the circumstances it is not desirable to give detailed figures, I cannot too strongly emphasise that the public, unless their duties otherwise require, should not neglect the warnings so often given not to remain unnecessarily in an exposed position during an air raid, but should take cover in the nearest accessible shelter, including surface shelter.

Personnel (Casualties)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Home Secretary how many members of the Civil Defence and National Fire Services have been killed or injured since the beginning of the war; how many of these are men and women respectively; and whether these casualties are included in the official total of civil casualties through enemy action?

Mr. H. Morrison: With my hon. Friend's permission, I will circulate the

figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. These casualties are included in the published figures of civilian casualties.

Following are the figures:

The casualties reported as having been sustained on duty and attributable to enemy action in the Civil Defence Services and the National Fire Service since the beginning of the war to 31st January, 1943, are:


Civil Defence (General) Services.





Killed:





Men
…
…
1,009


Women
…
…
172


Injured:





Men
…
…
5,957


Women
…
…
1,216


National Fire Service.





Killed:





Men
…
…
661


Women
…
…
16


Injured:





Men
…
…
5,029


Women
…
…
79

Northern Ireland (Boundary Regulations)

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether, as information useful to the enemy is continuing to be carried across the border between Northern Ireland and Eire, he will enforce stricter regulations in order to prevent such information reaching representatives of enemy countries in Dublin?

Mr. H. Morrison: There is nothing I can usefully add to the replies already given to my hon. Friend.

Dr. Little: Does not my right hon. Friend recognise that, as we are rapidly approaching the crisis of the war, every avenue through which information could be conveyed to the enemy should be closed, and especially that the open door between the United Kingdom and Eire within the British Empire which gives sanctuary to representatives of enemy countries should be locked, barred and bolted? Is it not time that this was done?

Mr. Morrison: I do not know how many divisions of the Army would be required to do it, and, on the whole, I think they are better occupied in fighting the Germans.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION

Mr. Bernard Taylor: asked the Home Secretary whether he will inquire into the case of Mr. J. T. Thorpe, of Portland Row, Selston, Nottinghamshire, who


was examined by Dr. Airey, of Leicester, on 17th February, 1943, for dermatitis and was certified as not suffering from the scheduled disease, while two medical reports given by two doctors say the man is suffering from dermatitis; and, in view of these conflicting decisions, whether he will ascertain on what grounds the medical referee refused the workman a certificate?

Mr. H. Morrison: I have made inquiries, and am advised that Mr. Thorpe's case has been referred to the Medical Referee on two occasions—on 22nd September, 1942, and 17th February, 1943. On both occasions the medical referee found that he was suffering from a constitutional form of dermatitis, and not from the scheduled disease, which is dermatitis produced by dust or liquids. While medical referees take into consideration any medical reports submitted, they are in no way bound by these reports, and necessarily base their decisions on their, own personal examinations of the workmen. In this case I cannot find, from the information which my hon. Friend has kindly sent me, that the reports of the two doctors to whom he refers conflicted on the fundamental point with the decision of the medical referee.

Mr. Henry White: asked the Home Secretary how many cases during the last six months from the counties of Nottingham and Derby have been referred to Dr. Airey as a medical referee on dermatitis from the mining industry; and the number that have been rejected as non-occupational?

Mr. Morrison: The number of cases for the six months ending December, 1942, was 129, in 106 of which the decision was against the workman. The returns do not show how many of these cases were from the mining industry.

Mr. White: asked the Home Secretary why representatives of the miners concerned are expected to provide data as to the velocity of the air; to give reasons why others working under similar conditions are not so affected; why suggestions are also made that they ought to be able to provide an analysis of the water prevalent at the colliery; and whether he will put an end to this sort of question?

Mr. Morrison: I understand from my hon. Friend that the questions referred to

are alleged to have been put by the medical referee. I am making inquiries, and will communicate with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that in the rare cases where you have a really unsuitable medical referee, the Workmen's Compensation Act gives no appeal from the referee, and there is no means of testing his good faith? Could some temporary amendment of the Act, to deal with that situation, be considered?

Mr. Morrison: If the medical referee is unsatisfactory—and it would not be fair for me to admit that he is in this case——

Mr. Silverman: I do not say that he is.

Mr. Morrison: —I could take steps to deal with him.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the whole workmen's compensation scheme ought to be recast?

Mr. Morrison: I made observations to that effect in the historic Debate on the Beveridge Report.

Mr. H. White: Will my right hon. Friend consider whether something can be done in these two cases?

Mr. Morrison: I will consider what I can do.

Oral Answers to Questions — REFUGEES (VISAS)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Home Secretary whether he has now been able to revise the present restrictions as to visas for entry into this country in favour of Jewish refugees whose lives are in danger in existing conditions in Europe?

Miss Rathbone: asked the Home Secretary whether the Regulations governing the issue of visas for the United Kingdom still forbid the issue of any visa to any alien while still in enemy-occupied country and to any adult alien, even if outside enemy-occupied territory, unless-his Department is satisfied that the alien is needed in this country for the war effort of ourselves or our Allies, and that his financial maintenance is guaranteed in the case of his failure to become self-supporting?

Mr. H. Morrison: The hon. Lady is under a misapprehension as to the considerations which govern the grant of visas to enable aliens to come to this country, as I have endeavoured to explain in a letter which will have reached her since she put down this Question. It is not possible to issue a visa for a journey to this country to a person who is still in enemy or enemy-controlled territory, nor is there any reason to think that escape from such territory can, in present circumstances, be assisted by authorising the grant of a visa in anticipation of escape. In deciding whether aliens who have escaped into neutral territory should be allowed to come here, the general practice—owing to the shortage of transport facilities to and of accommodation in this country—is to give priority to those wishing to join one of the Allied Forces or otherwise to assist actively in the Allied war effort, whose applications for visas have been vouched for by their national representatives in the country where they are. I am not aware that visas to come here are refused to refugees merely because their financial maintenance has not been guaranteed.

Mr. Harvey: Would my right hon. Friend answer the first Question—it has not been answered—which is in my name?

Mr. Morrison: I have stated the policy of the Department, and, in so far as we have definite knowledge of this question, that policy must stand for the time being.

Miss Rathbone: Does the right hon. Gentleman admit that the summary in my Question of the existing practice is perfectly accurate according to his own letter to me, except that wives as well as children of refugees already in this country are admitted; and, in view of the strong desire in this country for a really generous policy, are the Government really going to bolt and bar the door against any relaxation of this cruelly restrictive Regulation?

Mr. Morrison: I have answered the hon. Lady, and on the wider point, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has already made a statement as to the general policy of the Government, but the House will appreciate the fact that we cannot take action which may impede the successful prosecution of the war. The vital thing is that we must win the war and then deal with these people.

Mr. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how a refugee from Germany in a neutral country who desires to join our Fighting Forces can obtain from the national representative of his country in that neutral country visas satisfactory to my right hon. Friend?

Mr. Morrison: He cannot, I agree, in the case of a person from Germany, but there are channels through which he can make communication.

Mr. Silverman: But my right hon. Friend said in his original answer that such a certificate from the national representative of the country from which the refugee had escaped was a condition precedent to the issue of a visa by my right hon. Friend to come here. He has now admitted that the condition is impossible to obtain, and does not that make nonsense of his answer?

Mr. Morrison: The answer is perfectly clear, if my hon. Friend will only listen to it. The answer is:
The policy is to give priority to those wishing to join one of the Allied Forces or otherwise to assist actively in the war effort whose applications for visas have been vouched for by their national representatives in the country where they are.

Mr. Silverman: That cannot be done.

Mr. Morrison: That clearly postulates that the alien concerned comes from one of the neutral countries.

Mr. Sorensen: May we take it, therefore, that, if a refugee escapes from an enemy country and applies to the British Consul-General and indicates that he wishes to join the Forces in this country, a visa will then be granted to him?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir; it would then be considered.

Mr. Lipson: Can my right hon. Friend say whether a visa would be given to the parents of a man who has already served in the Forces?

Mr. Morrison: That question had better be put down.

Miss Rathbone: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the first Supplementary Question. Does he deny that my summary of the existing practice is perfectly accurate except that wives as well as children are sometimes included, and is this really the final decision on the part of the Government?

Mr. Morrison: This appears to be more in the nature of a Debate than a Question.

Miss Rathbone: In view of the gravely unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that, unless there is an early opportunity for a discussion of this matter in full Debate I shall be obliged to raise it on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — ELECTORAL MACHINERY (COM- MITTEE'S REPORT)

Sir Reginald Blair: asked the Home Secretary whether he has yet considered the Report of the Committee on Electoral Machinery, presented in December last; and has he any statement to make?

Mr. H. Morrison: The recommendations of this Committee, which involve rather intricate administrative details, are being examined. I will let my hon. Friend know as soon as I am in a position to make any statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

History Books (Committee)

Sir T. Moore: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will indicate the composition of the Committee now set up under the chairmanship of Professor Barker to consider the publication of objective history books of all countries for the post-war years?

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): I am circulating the names in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. MacLaren: What is meant by "objective history": is it recording of facts in a manner which must be deadly dull?

Mr. Butler: I am sure that the Committee will do their best.

Following are the members of the Committee:
Chairman—Professor Ernest Barker, L.L.D., Litt.D.
Belgium—Professor Timmermans.
Czechoslovakia—Dr. Jan Opocensky.
France—Monsieur Louis Gros.
Greece—Mr. Philip Argenti.
Netherlands—Professor J. H. de Boer.
Norway—Dr. Alf Sommerfelt and Mr. Okkenhaug.
Poland—Mrs. Maria Danilewicz.
Yugoslavia—Dr. Dragutin Subotic.
Board of Education—H.M. Inspector Mrs. Parkes, Miss Clayton.

Scottish Education Department—Mr. J. W. Parker.
Secretary—Mr. R. Seymour, of the British Council.

Local Authorities' Reconstruction Schemes

Mr. Hannah: asked the President of the Board of Education the total number of local education authorities; and how many have submitted schemes for educational reconstruction in the districts controlled by them?

Mr. Butler: There are 315 local education authorities in England and Wales. I am not sure to what my hon. Friend refers when he speaks of schemes for educational reconstruction. If he has in mind schemes under Part II of the Education Act, 1921, the answer is that no such scheme has been made and that that part of the Act is in abeyance. But perhaps he will communicate with me on this subject.

Mr. Hannah: Has any scheme been made in connection with the proposed school bases?

Mr. Butler: A Question about that matter comes next on the Paper.

School Bases

Mr. Harvey: asked the President of the Board of Education which local education authorities have submitted proposals to acquire an especially large site with a view to grouping upon it a number of educational buildings and forming a school base?

Mr. Butler: No local education authority has submitted a proposal to acquire an especially large site with a view to the provision of a school base.

Mr. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend consult with the Minister of Town and Country Planning with a view to encouraging local authorities to make such proposals?

Mr. Butler: In my answer of 14th February I drew attention to the fact that the local education authority was at liberty to seek a site for this purpose if so desired and there would be no difficulty in principle, and I hope that due publicity has been given to that. As to contact with my right hon. Friend, I already maintain that contact and shall continue to do so.

School Dinners

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the President of the Board of Education how many children are now receiving school dinners; and what percentage are receiving them without cost to their parents?

Mr. Butler: I have no official returns later than a date in October last. These show that 896,236 children in grant-aided schools in England and Wales were receiving school dinners. My hon. Friend will readily understand that the figures have been mounting steadily during recent months. Of the public elementary school children receiving dinners in October 15 per cent. received them free. The figures do not distinguish between meals provided free and for payment in secondary and technical schools.

Meals (Payment)

Mr. Lindsay: asked the President of the Board of Education whether, pending the promised provision of free meals for all schoolchildren, he will apply an income scale to children in secondary schools, as is usually done in primary schools; and whether he will confine payment to the cost of the food alone?

Mr. Butler: Arrangements for secondary school pupils' dinners are primarily the responsibility of the local school authorities. The Board's, recommendations with regard to the charges to be made are indicated in a Circular issued on 3rd December, 1940, a copy of which I am sending to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Lipson: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Board of Education is informed of the scales which are applied by the local authorities?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, we are signally well informed.

Girls' Training Corps

Sir Charles Edwards: asked the President of the Board of Education why there is a difference in the Girls' Training Corps to the Air Training Corps for boys; whether he is aware that the Girls' Training Corps have to pay fees, get no uniform and have financial obligations which the boys have not; and whether, as this hinders enrolment in this Corps, he will take steps to put them on the same footing?

Mr. Butler: The A.T.C. for boys is a pre-Service organisation sponsored and

financed by the Air Ministry to prepare boys for service with the Royal Air Force. The National Association of Girls' Training Corps is a voluntary organisation which, while specifically concerned to prepare girls for the women's services of His Majesty's Forces and other forms of National Service, takes its place with the other national voluntary organisations for girls. On the question of the supply of uniforms, I regret that I have nothing to add to the replies given on the 30th September last to the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah) and on the 23rd of last month to the hon. Member for East Islington (Mrs. Cazalet Keir), copies of which I am sending my right hon. Friend.

Sir Percy Harris: Do not girls attach far more importance to a uniform, and should we not recognise the equality of the sexes in this matter?

Mr. Butler: All I can say is that girls manage to get themselves up very nicely. I am sorry there is this differentiation.

Mr. George Griffiths: Does not the Minister realise how discouraging it is to the girls and the officers in charge of them? If he went about the country and asked about this matter, he would find out how discouraging it is because they are not on an equal footing with boys.

Mr. Butler: I do go about the country, and I am aware that there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction about this matter. If it were possible to provide uniforms, I should be only too glad to do so, but unfortunately it is not possible at present.

Mr. Sorensen: If the right hon. Gentleman does provide uniforms in this case, will he do so for other girls' organisations?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING OF EVACUEES (OLD AGE PENSIONER)

Mr. Ness Edwards: asked the Minister of Health why, after a declaration that the Assistance Board would not take into account payments made on account of the reception of official evacuees, the supplementary pension of Mrs. Ada Doble, 3, Hengoed Crescent, Hengoed, has been reduced on account of payments she received for housing evacuees?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): While as a general rule billeting


payments for accommodation only are disregarded in assessing supplementary pensions, the Board feel that they are bound to have some regard to the facts of individual cases. Mrs. Doble was living alone in a house for which she was paying a rent of 10s. 9d. When it was learnt that five people were being billeted on her, it was felt that it would not be reasonable to disregard the whole 19s. a week she was receiving for their accommodation, and at the same time provide for her rent in full.

Mr. Edwards: Is the Minister aware that under the declaration, when it was first made, this old age pensioner, aged 73, was in precisely the same circumstances? Under the declaration nothing was taken into account. Will the Minister have regard to the repercussions in this reception area where this old age pensioner takes in two blind people and three children yet has 7s. 6d. supplementary pension stopped?

Mr. Brown: I will look into the case with the Board.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Diphtheria (Milk Pasteurisation)

Sir Francis Fremantle: asked the Minister of Health whether the outbreak of diphtheria in East Yorkshire, traced to new clean milk from a farm, was due to infection the spread of which could have been prevented by pasteurisation; and what action has been taken to avoid such danger in future?

Mr. E. Brown: I am advised that the spread of infection in the case to which my hon. Friend refers would have been prevented by pasteurisation. I understand that only one cow is kept on the farm concerned, and the sale of milk from this farm has been ended.

Sir F. Fremantle: Can my right hon. Friend explain why there is delay in providing more adequate measures for ensuring pasteurisation in these cases?

Dr. Russell Thomas: Is the Minister aware that in Montreal a few years ago, where all the milk was pasteurised, there was an epidemic of 3,000 cases and 500 deaths and that the cause of the epidemic was traced to a worker in the pasteurisation plant?

Mr. Edward Smith: Is the Minister aware that recently in one of the Home Counties 40 samples of pasteurised milk, as supplied to school children, were taken away to be analysed, and 22 were found to be unsatisfactory?

Mr. Brown: I would like to see the specific terms of that Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Purbrick: If milk is pasteurised, might not the germs of diphtheria gain access to it afterwards?

Mental Clinics

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Health how many mental clinics for outpatient advice and treatment are being maintained by local authorities in England and Wales; whether he has any approximate figures of the number of patients for the past year; and whether he has given special attention to the need for extending such centres after the war?

Mr. E. Brown: In 1939 there were 177 such clinics and in the previous year approximately 19,000 patients had attended them. I regret that later figures are not available. The question of post-war extensions is receiving consideration.

Mr. Sorensen: In view of the excellent work that these clinics are doing for the benefit of out-patients, will the Minister see that every encouragement is given to them, as far as possible, so that after the war they will be considerably extended?

Mr. Brown: Certainly.

Tuberculosis, Durham County

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: asked the Minister of Health the number of cases of pulmonary and non-pulmonary tuberculosis notified in the county of Durham each year from 1930 to 1942 and the number of deaths from this disease during the same period?

Mr. E. Brown: As the reply involves a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Stewart: Has there been a falling off or an increase in the notifications?

Mr. Brown: It is a very long table, and I would not like to make generalisations.

Following is the reply:—

The numbers of cases of tuberculosis notified and of the deaths registered from

Year
Cases notified.
Deaths registered.


Pulmonary.
Non-Pulmonary.
Pulmonary.
Non-Pulmonary.


1930
2,198
1,403
1,253
533


1931
1,934
1,328
1,231
423


1932
1,983
1,433
1,208
440


1933
1,944
1,200
1,194
316


1934
1,948
1,153
1,133
331


1935
1,684
1,003
1,063
282


1936
1,686
990
968
240


1937
1,621
1,027
978
254


1938
1,520
1,012
888
211


1939
1,507
847
871
221


1940
1,552
747
950
197


1941
1,656
828
1,017
246


1942
1,619
905
(figures not yet available)

The deaths in 1940 and 1941 relate to civilians only.

Private Nursing Homes

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Health (1) whether, in view of several decisions not to recommend to the Ministry of Labour the deferment for national service of domestic staff, it is his policy to close down private nursing homes;
(2) whether, in view of his decision that there are too many private nursing homes in Newcastle-on-Tyne, he will give a list of other towns which he considers are in a similar position?

Mr. E. Brown: The fact that applications for deferment in individual cases are not invariably supported by my Department does not justify the conclusion which the hon. Lady has drawn. Individual applications must be considered on their merits.

Miss Ward: May I have a reply to the second Question, and will the Minister give a direct answer to the Question whether he wishes to reduce the number of nursing homes?

Mr. Brown: The answer is, "No." I said that in my reply.

Miss Ward: Has the Minister considered that as a matter of general policy, for instance, in Newcastle-on-Tyne, or does he deal with every individual case as it turns up?

Mr. Brown: All these cases for individual deferment, whether in nursing homes,

this disease for the County of Durham (administrative county and county boroughs combined) are as follow:

hospitals or anywhere else, are judged on their merits. That is the only way to deal with the matter in order to draw a fair line between the various demands for manpower.

Miss Ward: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Key Money

Mr. Logan: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the practice of granting 14 years' leases on small houses in Merseyside area is being abused by key money demands; and what steps he intends to take to prevent this?

Mr. E. Brown: My attention has been drawn to this matter, and I have noted the point for consideration when amendment of the Rent Restrictions Acts is practicable.

Mr. Logan: Is the Minister aware of the crying need, on account of the shortage of houses and the way in which our people on Merseyside are being exploited to the extent of paying £20 on these leases? Will he do something to deal with this exploitation and robbing of poor people?

Mr. Brown: I am aware of certain cases that have been brought to my


notice, but the House will understand that the Act of 1915 had the relevant provision in it, because of the desire of the House at that time, to facilitate leases of medium length.

Mr. Logan: But this was nearly 30 years ago, and we are in a war now. Am I to understand that the Minister has no power to deal with the exploitation of the poor? Cannot he amend the Act and have this evil removed?

Mr. Brown: I have already said that I have noted the point for an amendment of the Act.

Mr. Logan: This is very important. When does the Minister intend to bring such an amendment forward?

Mr. Brown: Not at the moment.

Mr. De la Bère: Words, words, words and never a gleam of light.

Post-War Subsidies

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: asked the Minister of Health the gross cost of subsidising the 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 houses it is proposed to build after the war as a matter of urgency on the basis of the subsidisation which was approved under the last Housing Act?

Mr. E. Brown: The various rates of subsidy referred to were payable only in respect of dwellings provided for slum clearance, for the abatement of overcrowding and for agricultural workers, and it is not possible to say at present what number of houses included in the estimate mentioned in the Question would be eligible for subsidy.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the cost of subsidising houses which were erected after the last war amounted to no less than £1,600,000,000, and is he going to put a similar imposition on the country when this war is over?

Mr. Brown: I have already said it is not possible to make an estimate.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Is the Minister aware that there is no object more worthy of subsidy than homes for the people?

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Why cannot the houses be built without a subsidy?

Mr. Thorneycroft: In view of the urgent housing needs, will the Minister give an assurance that questions of this character will not be allowed to prejudice his future policy, and will he give special consideration to Manchester in this matter?

Oral Answers to Questions — BEVERIDGE REPORT (CABINET COMMITTEE)

Mrs. Cazalet Keir: asked the Prime Minister the names of the members of the Committee which is to assist the Government to investigate the Beveridge proposals?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): As has been stated before in this House, it is contrary to the usual practice to publish details of the composition, etc., of War Cabinet Committees, and I regret that I am not prepared to make an exception in the case of the Committee to which my hon. Friend refers.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHILDREN'S ALLOWANCES

Mrs. Cazalet Keir: asked the Prime Minister what steps are being taken to implement the Government's decision to introduce children's allowances; and which Department is dealing with this matter?

Mr. Eden: Details of a scheme of children's allowances will be worked out, in consultation with the Departments concerned, by the small central staff which, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council in the course of the Debate on 16th February, is being set up under my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister without Portfolio to co-ordinate the preparatory work on the proposals contained in Sir William Beveridge's Report.

Mrs. Keir: Can my right hon. Friend say who will be the responsible Minister in this House to whom one can put Questions?

Mr. Eden: At the moment my hon. Friend seems very successful in putting them to the Prime Minister.

Mr. A. Bevan: Is it the intention of the Government to bring in these measures


separately by the Ministers concerned or to present all of them to the House together?

Mr. Speaker: That does not arise on this Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCHANT NAVY (AIR COVER)

Sir Douglas Thomson: asked the Prime Minister what Minister is responsible for providing air cover for merchant shipping when at sea, either sailing in convoy or otherwise; and what Minister is responsible for assessing the degree of such air protection required in any instance?

Mr. Eden: The defence of merchant shipping at sea calls for the employment of both ship-borne and shore-based aircraft. The First Lord of the Admiralty is responsible for that part of the air cover which can be given by naval ship-borne aircraft, the Secretary of State for Air for the provision of shore-based air forces to meet the broad requirements of air cover arrived at in consultation with the Admiralty. The general distribution of air effort, as between naval and Air Force requirements, is the responsibility of the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, and ultimately of the War Cabinet.

Sir D. Thomson: Is it seriously suggested that the Prime Minister is consulted in the day-to-day negotiations? Who is finally responsible for assessing on any day what assistance the Navy requires from the Air Force?

Mr. Eden: I think my answer is clear. The first part dealt with what might be called the practical things, and the second part dealt with the distribution of air effort generally, which is a matter for the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet.

Captain Peter Macdonald: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied with the liaison between the Naval Services, Coastal Command, Fighter Command and Bomber Command?

Mr. Eden: I am satisfied that very great progress is being made in this matter. The position has greatly improved of late.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Farm Hiring

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Minister of Agriculture under what circumstances county agricultural executive committees advertise farms available for hiring; whether they accept the highest tender; whether the outgoing tenant, if on active service, has the right on his return of resuming occupation; how long are the periods of hiring; and whether the committee exercise supervision of the activities of new tenants?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): As the answer is necessarily long, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Advertisements of this nature would no doubt relate to farms of which executive committees have taken possession, with my consent, under Defence Regulation 51; ordinarily a committee might be expected to accept the highest tender, subject to the person making the offer being able to satisfy the committee of his ability to farm the land properly and to obtain the maximum output from it. If the tenancy of the farm has been terminated, the occupier will have no right of re-entry when the committee relinquish possession. In cases where possession has been taken from an owner-occupier the owner will be entitled to resume occupation unless his title to do so has passed in the meantime to some other person. The maximum period of possession under Defence Regulations is three years after the end of the war, and contracts for occupation by some other person may be made for that period. I must point out, however, that at any time during the period of possession the land may be acquired by purchase under Section 9 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1941, if the conditions specified in paragraphs (b) and (c) of Sub-section (1) are satisfied. The answer to the last part of the Question is in the affirmative.

Italian Prisoners of War

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Minister of Agriculture the method by which supervision is exercised over Italian prisoners of war working on the land; and whether


it is the duty of those in charge of them to take any action in cases of idling or refusal to work properly?

Mr. Hudson: It is the responsibility of the empoyer to see that the work of Italian prisoners of war is properly organised and supervised, though the armed escort sent with a large party is required to see that the prisoners do a fair day's work. Where prisoners do not work properly the person in charge of them should make a written complaint to the Labour Officer at the camp so that the matter may be dealt with by the camp military authorities.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recently in Hampshire there has been a case of a gang of prisoners working for the war agricultural committee idling in working time, apparently free of all interference by any guards, and spending their time in carving swastikas and Fascist emblems on growing trees?

Mr. Hudson: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will let me have particulars.

Luxmore Committee's Report

Mr. Lindsay: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has yet received the report of the Luxmore Committee on Agriculture and Education?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Lindsay: Will this report be published?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir. It will be published as soon as the necessary printing arrangements can be made.

Lime

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that uncertainty as to the future of the agricultural market for lime is deterring some producers of lime from developing their production; and whether he will take steps to prevent this?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir. With a view to giving some guidance to lime producers the Government have been considering the question of the supply of lime for agricultural purposes when the present statutory authority for the lime subsidy is due to come to an end in 1944. The Government have already announced their intention to see that a healthy and well balanced agriculture is established in this country after the war. This policy governs

the action to be taken as regards lime. While therefore the precise steps will obviously have to be decided upon to suit the conditions then obtaining, it is clear that they will be such as to ensure the use of lime for agricultural purposes at a considerably higher level than in the years before the subsidy came into operation.

Workers' Cottages

Brigadier-General Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the grant of £150 for each agricultural cottage built by a local authority will be available to a landowner who is prepared to build similar cottages for agricultural workers?

Mr. Hudson: No, Sir.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not the provision of cottages for agricultural workers the key to the whole agricultural problem? Will my right hon. Friend impress this on the War Cabinet, Who do not seem to be aware of it?

Brigadier-General Brown: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the urgent demand for a large number of cottages for agricultural workers and the willingness of many agricultural landowners to build them if they are given financial assistance comparable with that available to local authorities, he will remove the restriction on rents attached to the subsidy under the Housing (Financial Assistance) Act, 1938, increase the reconditioning grant under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts and expedite the procedure for obtaining licences to build from the Ministry of Works and release of materials from the Ministry of Supply?

Mr. E. Brown: Owing to the many vital calls on the limited amount of labour and materials available, present house-building operations must be severely restricted. The limited programme of agricultural cottages already announced will place a severe strain on available resources, and I am afraid it is not possible to contemplate further building at the present time.

Brigadier-General Brown: In view of the fact that private landowners have built very large numbers of cottages for agricultural workers, cannot the Minister treat them in the same way as he does local authorities?

Mr. Brown: My hon. and gallant Friend will understand that under the present programme it is intended that the new


cottages shall be of the maximum benefit to the agricultural community generally and not to individual landowners. That is why the sites are being selected in consultation with county war agricultural executive committees by whom the tenants are for the time being to be nominated.

Brigadier-General Brown: How can a cottage on one farm be available to an agricultural worker on another farm? Are we to understand that the present programme is all the Minister intends to do?

Mr. Brown: My hon. and gallant Friend will understand that I would like to have more labour and material.

Mr. De la Bère: Above all else, let us get all the cottages built.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Old Age Pensions

Mr. Lipson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many old age pensioners there are; and for how many is the old age pension the only source of income?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): The number of old age pensioners in Great Britain at the end of 1942 is estimated at about 3,780,000, including women over 60 pensioned as widows under the Contributory Pensions Acts. As regards the second part of the Question, it is estimated, on the basis of an inquiry undertaken in 1940, that approximately 900,000 out of a total of rather under 1,400,000 pensioners who are in receipt of supplementary pensions, had some source of income other than their old age and supplementary pensions. No information is available as to the remaining 2,400,000 pensioners, but the fact that they have either not applied for or been found not to need supplementary pensions, makes it probable that the majority of them have some income other than their pensions.

Requisitioned Securities (Transfer Forms)

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the practice of the Bank of England of issuing blank transfer forms to holders of securities which the Government propose to requisition; and whether he will consider instructing the bank to fill in

the necessary particulars which they must themselves possess rather than leave it to stockholders to make investigations which cause waste of time and should be unnecessary?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. I fear that the suggestion made by my hon. and gallant Friend could not be adopted without imposing too great a burden on the limited staffs of the registrars concerned.

Sir G. Jeffreys: If I send my right hon. Friend a specimen copy of a transfer form, will he consider whether it can be reasonably expected that stockholders should understand all the matters about which they are asked to give particulars, and is not the present method a waste of private individuals' time?

Sir K. Wood: It is a very difficult matter.

"Wings for Victory" Weeks

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the forthcoming "Wings for Victory" weeks, he will give instructions that investments made by banks and insurance companies are kept separate from those made by the small investor, so that a true picture may be obtained of the source from which the subscriptions are derived?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I do not think that my hon. Friend's suggestion would serve any useful purpose.

Mr. Stokes: Will the Chancellor tell the people what is the proportion of banks' and insurance companies' investments, and is he aware that it was his own Department which recently made it plain that of the £5,000,000,000 savings so far made, between 65 and 70 per cent. came from the banks and insurance companies?

Sir K. Wood: The hon. Member will obtain some information, I hope, when the White Paper is published.

Mr. Stokes: If it is possible to keep the subscriptions separate on the large issues, why is it not possible to do it in this ridiculous "Wings for Victory" campaign?

Sir Granville Gibson: What good purpose can be served by keeping them separate, as long as we get the money?

Mr. A. Edwards: Would it not be a good thing if people realised that not


more than 10 per cent. of this is genuine savings and that all the rest is ridiculous ballyhoo?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I do not know why the hon. Member wants to decry this very successful movement.

Mr. Stokes: Because it is humbug.

Mr. De la Bère: We must separate the true from the false and the real from the unreal.

Post-War Currency Policy

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether he will assure the House that in his discussions with representatives of Allied countries on post-war currency policy no fundamental change will be made in the terms of the British Currency Declaration of 1933;
(2) whether he will assure the House that when our representatives discuss post-war policy with representatives of the United Nations in the United States of America at the invitation of the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Sumner Welles, no fundamental change will be made in the terms of the British Currency Declaration of 1933?

Sir K. Wood: In the discussions referred to by my hon. Friend the United Kingdom representatives will be guided by the general considerations which I outlined in the Debate on Post-War Economic Policy on 2nd February. The British Empire Currency Declaration of 1933 could not, without material modification, be regarded as applicable to the facts of the present time. I have no doubt there will be full opportunity for questions of post-war monetary policy to be discussed in this House before any decisions are reached.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: In view of what my right hon. Friend has said about the Currency Declaration of 1933, will he give an undertaking to the House that this country will not be committed on either its currency policy or its post-war policy unless the House has an opportunity of debating it first?

Sir K. Wood: I would refer my hon. Friend to the last part of my reply, which anticipated his question.

Oral Answers to Questions — CLOTHES RATIONING

Mr. Burden: asked the President of the Board of Trade how long the red coupons in the clothing ration book are intended to last?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): In view of the increasing stringency of supplies, and the need, in the interest of our war effort, to achieve the maximum economy in labour, material, and shipping space, it will be necessary for the red coupons in the clothing ration book to last until the end of August. The clothing ration for the next rationing period, which will begin on 1st September, cannot yet be decided, since it must be governed by the future supply situation. But it will certainly not exceed the rate for the present period, namely, 48 coupons a year, and it may have to be less. I trust that everyone will continue to practise the utmost possible economy in expenditure on clothing. All the coupons in the present ration book, green and brown as well as red, will continue to be valid after 1st September next, at least until the end of 1943, and probably longer. Their validity will not, in any event, be terminated without at least four weeks' notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — HIRE PURCHASE (CONTROL)

Sir Harold Webbe: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any further statement to make on the Hire Purchase (Control) Order, recently made by his Department.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. Following representations from traders concerned. I have decided to replace this Order by another of a more comprehensive character, entitled the Hire Purchase and Credit Sale Agreements (Control) Order, 1943, which has been published to-day and will come into force on 22nd March. The effect of the new Order is to prohibit, with certain exceptions, the sale on hire purchase or credit sale agreements, at a price exceeding the retail cash price, of all price-controlled goods, whether new or second-hand. The chief exceptions, in addition to furniture and perambulators, which are covered by previous Orders, are motor-cycles, bicycles, sewing machines, wireless sets and domestic heating, cooking and cleaning appliances. Certain consequential


amendments will have to be made to the Orders controlling the retail prices of furniture, perambulators and second-hand goods. These will be made within the next few days and come into force on the same date as the Hire Purchase and Credit Sale Agreements (Control) Order.

Mr. Logan: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to a case of furniture being sold for £10 6s. and put into an auction room and sold for £78, and what does he intend to do in regard to such cases?

Mr. Dalton: I shall be obliged if my hon. Friend will send me particulars, in which case any action open to the law will be taken.

Oral Answers to Questions — POSTAL CENSORSHIP, LIVERPOOL

Mr. Kirby: asked the Minister of Information the number of hours normally worked per week by the clerical and languages staff at the offices of the Postal Censorship, Liverpool; whether there is a high degree of sickness due to bad conditions and overwork among these sections of the staff; and how many were absent from work due to sickness on 1st March, 1943?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): The number of hours at present normally worked per week in postal censorship at Liverpool is 46½ by the clerical grades and 44 by the censorship grades. The sickness rate is not considered high in view of the time of year and the high average age of the staff, nor is it regarded as in any way attributable to bad conditions or overwork. The number of staff absent sick on 1st March, 1943, was 23 in the clerical and 129 in the censorship grades.

Mr. Kirby: Is it not the case that in the winter there have been anything between 200 and 400 persons absent on account of sickness, and will my hon. Friend look further into the matter?

Mr. Thurtle: As I understand it, the sickness rates are not abnormal, and I am assured that the working conditions are quite satisfactory, but if my hon. Friend has any particular point which is causing him misgiving, if he will let me know about it I will have inquiries made.

Oral Answers to Questions — LONG-DISTANCE TRAINS (ACCOMMODATION)

Mr. David Adams: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is aware that long-distance trains are leaving King's Cross with men, women and children passengers standing in the corridors for long periods, whilst first-class compartments are seating only six persons each; and whether, to remedy these hardships, he will give instructions that seating shall in future be not less than eight persons per compartment when required?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): I share my hon. Friend's anxiety that the passengers on the long-distance trains to which he refers shall be spared all avoidable discomfort. I understand, however, that the seating accommodation in these trains, both in first and third-class compartments, is already being used to its full capacity. In some first-class compartments the fixed projecting arm-rests make it impracticable to seat more than six persons. But the train attendants have been instructed that where first-class compartments can seat eight passengers in reasonable comfort, this additional accommodation must be used.

Mr. Adams: Why was not this obvious necessity put into force long ago?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Instructions were in fact given some time ago. If my hon. Friend will give me particulars of any case he has in mind, I will make inquiries.

Sir Granville Gibson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if I travel to Yorkshire this afternoon, I must be at the station at least half-an-hour before the train starts?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I know that pressure on the trains is very great, and I regret it, but it is an unavoidable necessity.

Miss Rathbone: Is the meaning of the regulation that, if there is an arm rest which can be raised, the train officers have a right to insist that it shall be raised?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, that is the understanding.

FLAX GROWING

Mr. Thorne: asked the Minister of Supply how many farmers in Northampton are to grow flax; how many acres will be cultivated; and whether any other farmers in other parts of the country will grow flax?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Peat): Some 350 farmers in Northamptonshire will be growing flax this year under contract for the Ministry of Supply on about 5,500 acres. Flax is also being grown under contract by some 5,000 farmers in other parts of Great Britain.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: Will the Leader of the House state the Business for the next series of Sittings?

Mr. Eden: The Business will be as follows:
First Sitting Day—Report stage of the Civil Vote on Account. A Debate will take place on Colonial Administration in the West Indies.
Second Sitting Day—Report stage of the Navy, Army and Air Estimates; Report stage of outstanding Supplementary Estimates; and, if there is time, Second Reading of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Bill [Lords.]
Third Sitting Day—Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. A Debate will take place on a Motion to approve the Government's proposals for the Reform of the Foreign Service.

Mr. Greenwood: Last week I asked a question about the Report of the Select Committee on Equal Compensation. I had not realised then that the minutes of evidence had not been published. I gather that they have not been published yet, but that they are to be published early. I assume that some Government statement will be made at a fairly early date after that?

Mr. Eden: The minutes, I understand, are now available. I cannot say exactly when a statement will be made.

Sir P. Harris: When is there likely to be the promised Debate on India? I understand that a White Paper is expected?

Mr. Eden: It is true that we are expecting some documents from India, which have not yet arrived. I think it will be for the convenience of the House that they shall be available before the Debate takes place.

Mr. Price: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider not taking Committee, Report and Third Reading stages of complicated Bills on the same day, as has happened in the past? While recognising the need of getting Business done quickly, will he in future consider not making a practice of this?

Mr. Eden: I realise that is inconvenient to the House, and I think I can say that we will do our utmost to make the procedure to which the hon. Member objects the exception rather than the rule.

Mr. G. Griffiths: When may we expect a statement regarding old age and widows' pensions? We are waiting very patiently, and so are the old age pensioners.

Mr. Eden: Quite shortly now, I think.

Commander King-Hall: When are we likely to have a Debate on the post-war currency question, and may we have an assurance that no decision will be reached before the House has an opportunity of debating the matter?

Mr. Eden: I do not think we are ready for a Debate yet. With regard to the latter part of the question, we propose to follow the usual practice. The Government take the decision and accept responsibility for it.

Mr. William Brown: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a rough indication when we are likely to be able to debate the Rushcliffe Report? The London County Council is likely to apply its recommendations as from 1st April, and it is desirable that we should have our discussion before then, if possible.

Mr. Eden: I should like to look into that.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Can we have any indication when we shall consider the Scottish Hydro-Electric Development Bill in Committee, and will the right hon. Gentleman consider the request which I made on behalf of Members in many parts of the House for a Debate on forestry?

Mr. Eden: I am afraid that we are not quite ready for the Committee stage yet.


As regards the second part of the question, I have not forgotten that, but I had it in mind that it might be more useful to have the Debate when the House was in possession of fuller information, which I hope will be coming along.

Professor A. V. Hill: In view of the widespread interest in the subject, will the Government be able to give time in the near future for a discussion of the Motion standing in my name and the names of 276 other hon. Members?

[That, in view of the massacres and starvation of Jews and others in enemy and enemy-occupied countries, this House desires to assure His Majesty's Government of its fullest support for immediate measures, on the largest and most generous scale compatible with the requirements of military operations and security, for providing help and temporary asylum to persons in danger of massacre who are able to leave enemy and enemy-occupied countries.]

Mr. Eden: The Government are not at all opposed in principle to having such a discussion, but I should like to consider what would be the most convenient moment so that the discussion could do the maximum amount of good.

Mr. de Rothschild: Can the question of the proposed new Constitution in Jamaica be discussed in the Debate on the West Indies?

Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Gallacher: I want to ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the talk and the suspicion about double-crossing in this House and in certain parts of the country——

Mr. Speaker: That sort of allegation has nothing to do with Business.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Will the Leader of the House elucidate the answer he gave with regard to the Chancellor's promise that before any commitments are made on behalf of this country with regard to currency in future there will be an opportunity of Debate in this House? The Leader of the House said just now that any statement made by the Government would be implemented. What we want to be clear about is that the Government will not make decisions and then merely come to the House to ratify them. We want to be sure that in this matter of the currency

future after the war the House will have an opportunity of expressing its views before any definite commitments are made by the Government which will in fact prevent the House taking a view of its own.

Mr. Eden: I do not think that there is really any difference between us. I have no doubt that in practice there will be an opportunity, and several opportunities, for discussion before the time for decision arrives. The only thing I was trying to do was to safeguard the recognised constitutional position and not to tie the hands of the Government,

Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman's understanding of the ordinary procedure of the Government to commit the country first and then come to this House?

Sir Ian Fraser: Will my right hon. Friend give an early day for discussion of the Motion which stands in my name and those of Members in all parts of the House, so that the whole position relating to disabled ex-Service men may be thoroughly gone into?

[That this House affirms its desire that war disability pensions and allowances should provide for ex-Service men and women and their families and the widows and orphans of the fallen, a measure of comfort and amenity to compensate them for their loss over and above the income needed for necessary subsistence, and asks His Majesty's Government to inquire by Select Committee, Departmental Committee or otherwise (a) whether independent appeal tribunals are necessary to ensure that justice is done to all claimants and (b) whether any change is required in the conditions or rates of pensions and allowances now in force having regard to any change that may have taken place in the cost of living or the general standards of living since the present Royal Warrants were issued.]

Mr. Eden: I have noted that, but I am afraid I cannot give an undertaking of a particular day at the moment.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Will the Debate on the West Indies be on the widest possible basis, so that we can discuss not only the internal administration of the West Indies but their future external relationship with the Empire as a whole?

Mr. Eden: That is a matter for the Chair, but I think that it will probably be a wide Debate.

Sir G. Gibson: When is it intended to debate the proposals for the amalgamation of the various Diplomatic and Consular Services?

Mr. Eden: It is to be taken on the third Sitting Day.

Mr. A. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the urgency of the question of disabled ex-service men? Every Member's postbag is full of appeals from them concerning their pensions. We have been promised on many occasions that the Government will seriously consider setting up appeal tribunals. Can we have an early date to discuss this matter, please?

Mr. Eden: I think the question of appeal tribunals is another issue. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) was good enough to give me notice of the issue he raised, and I have undertaken to give it consideration. I cannot promise a day now.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider giving an early day for a discussion on the war, with particular reference to military co-operation with the Soviet Union on the Continent, in view of the suspicions that are being peddled around about double-crossing?

Mr. Eden: I fortunately have no responsibility and no knowledge of suspicions about double-crossing. What I do know is that our Soviet Allies are fully informed of our military position and our military plans.

BILL PRESENTED

HOUSING (AGRICULTURAL POPULATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL,

"to extend the time within which applications for assistance under the Housing (Agricultural Population) (Scotland) Act, 1938, may be made to local authorities"; presented by Mr. T. Johnston, supported by the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor-General for Scotland, Mr. Westwood, and Mr. Chapman; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed. [Bill 17.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

AIR ESTIMATES, 1943

Order for Committee read.

SIR ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR'S STATEMENT

The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
During the past year the Royal Air Force has fought hard and expanded rapidly. The process of expansion gives rise to problems of training, organisation and supply, which increase in complexity with the introduction of new and advanced types of aircraft and scientific equipment. The expansion and development of the training organisation at home and overseas to meet the operational requirements of

the Royal Air Force has continued during the past year. The total output of trained aircrews was substantially higher in 1942 than in 1941, and will continue to increase this year. We now group pilots, navigators and air bombers together on entry into the Service, and their selection for the particular aircrew category is made after preliminary training on a common course, with a flight test. By this means the percentage of failures during the first stage of pilot training has been reduced by 20 per cent.
Year by year we ask more of our pilots and crews and give them larger and faster aircraft and more complicated equipment to use. Moreover, pilots and observers trained overseas need—before they can begin their operational training—some period of acclimatisation to get used to the black-out and bad weather over here, and to flying over this little island with its intricate pattern of railways, roads and tiny fields. Accordingly, between the completion of basic training and entry into the operational training units, in which the aircrews are trained and pass out to the squadrons, we have interposed the advanced flying units for pilots and observers. Special attention has also been paid to armament training, particularly air gunnery. New methods have been adopted and courses lengthened. The standard of navigation training has also been raised until the standard for instructors and navigation staff officers is now equal to what we formerly expected only from navigation specialists. In short, we have raised the standards and lengthened the period of aircrew training at a time when the enemy has been forced severely to reduce the length of his training courses and to accept a lowered standard of aircrew efficiency. The fruits of our training are reflected in the greatly increased impact of the Royal Air Force—and especially of Bomber Command—on the enemy. They can be seen, also, as the House will I am sure be glad to learn, in a marked decline in the proportion of accidents to hours flown. At present the accident rate in the Royal Air Force is 20 per cent. below what it was at this time last year.
The contribution made by the Dominions to the war in the air has continued on the same magnificent scale as hitherto. The Joint Air Training Plan Agreement concluded in 1939 between the Governments of the United Kingdom,


Canada, Australia and New Zealand for the training of aircrews was extended until March, 1945, at the Conference held in Ottawa last June. The new Agreement provides for a still further expansion of training facilities in Canada. Besides undertaking responsibility for the administration and control of this vast plan, Canada provides a major proportion of the pupils, and has accepted financial responsibility for one half of the cost of the organisation.
It would not be fitting for me to fail to mention the recent announcement of the Canadian Government's generous intention to undertake financial responsibility for the whole cost of the 35 Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons formed or to be formed under the Agreement for service with the Royal Air Force in this country and in other theatres of war. As, however, the proposal has, I understand, still to be considered by the Canadian Parliament, the House will not expect me to do more than refer to it at this stage. We have more recently had the pleasure of welcoming delegations from Australia and New Zealand who came to this country to negotiate extensions of the Empire Air Training Schemes in Australia and New Zealand which were orginally concluded in 1939, and have been operating with no less success than the larger scheme in Canada. I would like to pay warm tribute to these two Dominions for continuing throughout to send aircrews to serve with the Royal Air Force, despite the entry of Japan into the war. The great training organisations in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia are also operating with great success and producing highly trained aircrews in increasing numbers.
I pay grateful tribute to all these countries for their generous exertions in organizing these schemes and overcoming all manner of difficulties, and to the large number of young men of the Dominions they have trained and who are now playing so gallant a part with the Royal Air Force against the enemy in all theatres of war. Nor, without the generous and un-stinted help of the United States Government, who lent us in 1941 a substantial proportion of their aircrew training organisation with invaluable training aircraft and instructors, could we have reached our present level of achievement. The growth of our own training organisation has now enabled us to return many

of these training schools to the U.S. Air Forces.
In Technical Training Command the standard of skill of the trained men and women has continued at a high level, while the administration of the Command has been reorganised to simplify the administrative control. There has been some re-organisation, also, in Balloon Command with a view to increased efficiency. There is, however, no change in the policy of employing women as balloon operators; on the contrary, the policy has been admirably justified by results, and in the reorganised Command 47 per cent. of the strength will be women.
The Air Ministry is deeply indebted to Miss Violet Markham and her colleagues for their Report on the Women's Services. Nearly all its recommendations, apart from those which were already in operation when the Report was published, have been adopted or accepted in principle.

Mr. Bellenger: The right hon. Gentleman says the recommendations of the Committee have been accepted in principle. Have they been accepted in practice?

Sir A. Sinclair: Certainly, but perhaps the hon. Member would raise that in the course of the Debate, and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State will answer him. I do not want to keep the House too long, and as it is I am afraid I shall have to make some demand on the patience of hon. Members.
There is another Royal Air Force Command of which little is heard but whose admirable work I feel it my duty to bring to the attention of the House—I refer to Maintenance Command. From small beginnings—half-a-dozen units and less than 7,000 personnel—there now exist at home 200 maintenance units, employing scores of thousands of airmen and W.A.A.F., and civilian men and women, a vast network of supply covering this country, and despatching abroad. These units hold and distribute every kind of item which the Royal Air Force requires—from a Lancaster to a pair of boots. The articles which have to be provisioned, stocked and distributed and are in active demand number over 750,000—that is to say, if the-Air Ministry were a public trading corporation, our catalogue would contain over 750,000 items.
Maintenance Command receives on the average over 60,000 demands a day; handles 250,000 tons of equipment and stores a month—6 tons a minute night and day throughout last year; last month 27,000 loaded rail wagons were received at its Depots, and during that month 2¼ million items of all kinds were issued and distributed; the motor transport controlled or used by the Command on Air Force business has lately covered the equivalent of three times round the world a day. Responsibility is largely decentralised, the operational station dealing direct with maintenance units. The organisation keeps in touch with industrial development and consults leading men in industry and commerce in order to avail itself of the latest experience of the business world. On the same principles the maintenance services have been organised with notable success in overseas theatres, particularly where the opportunity was greatest—in the Middle East, where the strength and ingenuity with which the maintenance services have been handled have given us an improved model for further operations on a similar scale. I am glad to have this opportunity in the House of paying the maintenance organisation of the Royal Air Force a tribute which its enthusiasm and efficiency alike deserve.
Another service, of which comparatively little is heard, but which means much to the Royal Air Force, is the Air/Sea Rescue Service. Besides the R.A.F. rescue launches, craft of all kinds from fishing smacks to destroyers join in this work, and the Royal Navy is always unstinting in its help. Many hundreds of aircraft during the past year have called for the help of the Rescue Service, and many hundreds of flying men have been saved, both at home and overseas. A variant of this service specialises in saving life in the desert, and nearly 100 lives have been saved from the desert in the fighting in Africa. At home we have developed also a widespread and intricate organisation to guide to safe landing aircraft in distress on return from operations, and during 1942 these new' controls saved more than 1,000 aircraft from imminent disaster.
We shall debate to-day on the Amendment which is on the Paper the question of Civil Aviation. I shall not, therefore, detain the House on that subject. Air transport is, however, not only a problem

of peace but an urgent requirement of war. Starting the war as we did just over three years ago, in a numerical inferiority of four to one comparing our Air Forces at home with those of Germany, we had to concentrate all the resources of our aircraft industry on the production of combat aircraft and rely on the United States for transport aircraft. The House knows that we are now beginning to make transport aircraft for ourselves and to obtain the promised supplies from America. All transport aircraft which we now possess, or which we shall produce here, or obtain from America, will be used to meet urgent war requirements. With these new aircraft we shall be able to form new transport squadrons.
With an increased number of transport squadrons, an organisation will be required to control their operations throughout the world. I have, therefore, decided to establish a Royal Air Force Transport Command. To create such a Command sooner would have been to put the cart before the horse. It has not been commanders and staff that we have been short of, but aircraft. Now the Command will come naturally into being through the process of bringing supply and organisation into focus. In addition to controlling the operations of Royal Air Force transport squadrons at home, the Command will be responsible for the organisation and control of strategic air routes, for all overseas ferrying and for the reinforcement moves of squadrons to and between overseas theatres. The Royal Air Force Ferry Command at Montreal will become a subordinate formation.
The British Overseas Airways Corporation will continue as a civil organisation. Some of its services terminate in or pass through neutral countries, and much of its work meets the essential communication needs of overseas civil administrations. For some time now, the Corporation has been working in close partnership with the Royal Air Force on the North Atlantic route. This partnership will be extended over the wider field, and will ensure that the services and requirements of the Corporation are integrated with those of the new Command. The guiding principle will be that the Air Transport Command and the Corporation will work in the closest collaboration, freely exchanging information and experience; avoiding duplication wherever possible, and helping each other to the best of their ability to


carry out the respective tasks allotted to them. It is fitting that I should here pay a tribute to the members, management, aircrews and staffs of the Corporation for the splendid contribution which they have made to the conduct of the war during the past year, often in circumstances of extreme difficulty.
It is impossible within the compass of a single speech to do justice to the fighting achievements of the Royal Air Force and the Dominions and Allied Air Forces in every quarter of the globe. Apart from the main theatres of Royal Air Force activity, during the past year, squadrons of the Royal Air Force have operated from North Russia, off the East coast of the United States, in the South-West Pacific, in Ceylon, Madagascar, Aden, Persia, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and West Africa. Public attention is naturally concentrated on the operations of our squadrons in the main theatres of war, but the squadrons in these distant parts are, often with meagre resources, doing indispensable work—and doing it faithfully and well.

Mr. Granville: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us who is to command the new Air Transport Command?

Sir A. Sinclair: No, Sir, I cannot. The main functions of the Royal Air Force are well known to the House—first, to shield our war industries, centres of transport and communication, and our homes from the attacks of the enemy; secondly, to take its share with the Navy in the defence of our sea routes and in the counter-offensive against the German submarine; thirdly, to combine with the other two Services in offensive operations against the enemy's air, land and sea forces; and fourthly, to carry the war into the enemy's country by attacking his war industries and transport, and the bases of his naval and military power in Germany, Italy and in Occupied territory. Three times since 1870 has Germany inflicted the horrors of war on her neighbours. For the first time since then she is experiencing them inside Germany itself.
The air defence of Great Britain is the primary responsibility of Fighter Command. But not by any means its only responsibility for, as I shall presently show, it also plays its full part in combined operations with other Services, like Dieppe, the defence of our sea routes and in the air offensive against Germany. It

would be a great mistake to suppose that the strength of the German striking force in Western Europe can be measured by the size of the raids which they have attempted on this country. Throughout the Whole of the past year there has been a formidable German bomber force in Western Europe. The soundness of the air defence of Great Britain—fighters, guns, searchlights, balloons and warning system—has been a strong deterrent to ambitious German enterprises whether by day or night. In the three months December, January and February, for example, of 392 aircraft which crossed our coasts by day 46 were destroyed, in addition to a large number probably destroyed and damaged; while, in the same period, of 240 aircraft which crossed our coast by night 26 were destroyed in addition to probables and damaged. Recently the enemy has increased the number of his tip-and-run raids against coastal objectives by day. His fighter-bombers come in very low, flying at a speed of five miles a minute or more. They drop their bombs, machine-gun the streets, and get away as fast as they can, perhaps mounting up into cloud cover—climbing at a rate which would bring them up to the top of Ben Nevis in not much more than a minute. There are very few targets of military importance in these coastal towns, but the German pilots are not looking for military objectives. Their instructions are to avoid them. Their only objective is to create terror, running no avoidable risk of casualties in the process. Contrast these methods with our own. Our fighter-bombers and light bombers not only venture almost every day far into German-occupied territory and even from time to time into Germany itself, but their objectives are always objectives of military importance—camps, war factories and centres of transport.
The House will be able to judge the comparative efficiency of the British and German defences by the fact that in the last three months we have inflicted upon the enemy engaged in these promiscuous attacks on our coastal towns a rate of casualties nearly three times as heavy as we have suffered in our discriminating day attacks on military objectives in Germany and occupied territory. We in the Air Ministry feel deep concern for those on whom such loss and suffering are inflicted. Swift and heavy punishment of these outrages is our aim. Effective as our


defences are, we are constantly devising fresh means to strengthen them. The object, however, of these German attacks is clear. It is to stir up in this country such agitation as will compel the Government to divert forces for the protection of these coastal towns from offensive action against Germany. The Germans have once again under-estimated the fortitude of our civilian population. Against the courage of our people and the effectiveness of our defence, these sneak raids are proving as futile for their purpose as they are costly to the German Air Force. The most notable feature of our defence against these sneak raiders has been the remarkable success of our Typhoon squadrons in catching and destroying them. The reputation which the Typhoon has built up is well deserved. One squadron of Typhoons alone has' destroyed in January and February no fewer than 13 German aircraft.
The House will also realise that the fighter battles in the Far East in India and in Burma, in Egypt, Libya, North Africa and Malta, have been largely fought by pilots and squadrons, commanders, staffs and controllers selected and trained by Fighter Command. The House knows that three squadrons of Spitfires, two of them squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force, were sent to Australia from this country during the past year, and I am sure hon. Members will feel it fitting that, just as Australian squadrons are fighting alongside our squadrons in many theatres of war, so a squadron from Britain with Australian squadrons trained and equipped here in England should be sharing in the defence of Australia. In an attack on Darwin nine days ago these Spitfire squadrons shot down without loss to themselves six out of a total raiding force of 15 Japanese aircraft.
Public attention has naturally been arrested by the very small scale so far of the German- reprisal raids against London following upon our attacks on Berlin. Largely this is due to German preoccupation with the campaigns in Russia and Africa; it is also largely due, as I have pointed out, to the effectiveness of our air defence; there is, however, a third reason, which is sometimes overlooked, and that is the pulverising offensive of Bomber Command which is compelling the Germans to switch a not unimportant proportion of their capacity

from the production of bombers to that of defensive fighters. So the bomber offensive plays its part, too, in the defence of our homes and arsenals.
In the war at sea, all the operational Commands of the Royal Air Force at home have played their part. Army Co-operation Command, in reconnaissance and in attacks on German communications and ships, fighter command, in attacks upon railway and canal communications, on U-boat bases, and on ships and in the protection of convoys round our coasts, on which nearly 50,000 fighter sorties have been flown in 1942——

Mr. Stokes: On a point of Order. I have always understood that it is a custom of this House that Members should not be allowed to read their speeches. I have been listening attentively to the right hon. Gentleman, and he has not taken his eye off his script since he started.

Mr. Speaker: It is generally understood that a Minister in charge of one of our Defence Departments has to be so careful what he says, unless he give information to the enemy, that we do allow him to read his speech.

Mr. Bellenger: Further to that point of Order. Twice the right hon. Gentleman has been interrupted during his speech, but he has waved aside those interruptions, saying that we can put the points to the Under-Secretary of State when he comes to reply. Are we merely to have a statement read to us and no opportunity for Debate with the right hon. Gentleman as he goes along upon what may be rather important points?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. We do not debate a speech as it goes along, but afterwards.

Sir A. Sinclair: I have had to examine this speech very carefully and closely, with the object of giving the utmost information to the House about the operations of the Royal Air Force during the past year. If I were to get up in public and speak as I have spoken to hon. Friends of mine in Committee rooms upstairs without having any notes, I should have to keep well inside, far inside, the boundaries, and I am afraid I should not be able to give anything like the information to hon. Members which I hope to


give. I was saying that, in the war at sea, Army Co-operation Command and Fighter Command have been playing a big part. Bomber Command, too, 49 per cent. of whose targets in 1942 were predominantly, but not of course wholly, naval targets. Let me also bring to the notice of Honourable Members the mining done by bomber squadrons. The seas are broad, but the particular channels in which mines can be laid with effect are few and narrow. The work demands the highest degree of navigation accuracy, and it is dangerous, for the most fertile fields for mine-laying are now strongly protected. There has been a nine-fold increase in 1942 as compared with 1941 in the number of mines laid and, although information about results is difficult to obtain, we know that a very substantial number of ships has been sunk. Only the other night, one of our coastal aircraft flying not far from a submarine base in the Bay of Biscay saw a submarine coming out attended by an escort vessel. As our coastal aircraft moved to attack it saw an explosion; the submarine disappeared, then the stern emerged from the water at a sharp angle and finally the submarine sank—destroyed by a mine. It was just a chance that it was seen, and there is no doubt that our mines are doing a great deal more damage than we know of. In all, during the past two years the R.A.F., in all theatres of war, has sunk or seriously damaged more than 1¼ million tons of enemy shipping. The shortage of shipping resulting from these operations and still more, of course, from those of the Royal Navy, have had a most serious effect on Germany's communications, and Germany's ability to move vital supplies of iron ore and aluminium from Scandinavia to her war industries.
So all the home Commands of the R.A.F. join in the war at sea; but it is Coastal Command which has the war at sea as its main preoccupation. The expansion of this Command during the past year has been rapid, and its squadrons have been equipped with aircraft of longer range and greater capacity for carrying bombs and depth-charges. Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Fortresses and Liberators are now working on our sea routes and maintaining the offensive against the German submarines. New weapons and many strange contrivances have ripened to the point of production and are now being

used to increase the effectiveness of the patrol of our sea routes from the air, and of our attacks upon the U-boats.
The grim battle with the U-boats demands shrewd planning, meticulous analysis of operational results and unceasing scientific inventiveness. Better bombs and depth-charges and new navigation and radio aids have been introduced. A large convoy may cover several square miles of sea, but to pick it up in dirty weather—perhaps 800 miles out, perhaps a thousand miles out—is a thing we could not have contemplated a year ago. It is perhaps difficult for a landsman to realise the extraordinary skill which is required to navigate with accuracy through gales and cloud over the vast spaces of the sea. These Coastal Command crews, who fly in all weathers, face all dangers, and endure the monotony of being cooped up in their aircraft for perhaps more than twenty-four hours at a stretch, deserve our thanks and praise.
During the past 12 months, the air cover provided by Coastal Command on the one side and by the Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Air Forces on the other, over convoys crossing the Atlantic has markedly improved. Experience has shown that air cover is a major factor in defeating the U-boat and we are determined so to improve it that we shall be able to say that there is no time by day or by night when air cover cannot be provided for the North Atlantic routes.
Perhaps the most important single task which fell to Coastal Command during the past year was the provision of air cover for the convoys carrying the Allied Expeditionary Force to North Africa. In this, Coastal Command was helped by Bomber Command and by the 8th United States Army Air Force Bomber Command. All the convoys passed at right angles across the paths of the submarines moving to and from their ports in the Bay of Biscay. Yet so active were the air patrols that the various convoys arrived at their assault position not only without the loss of a ship, but without, so far as we know, even being sighted by a single German submarine. At sea, therefore, we help the Royal Navy in the war against submarines, in the protection of convoys, and in strategical reconnaissance. They, on their part, protect the convoys which carry our reinforcements and our supplies.
A striking example of the services rendered by the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force was the carriage during 1942 of no fewer than 744 fighters to the point at which they were flown off to the reinforcement of Malta. Also we have good reason to be grateful to those splendid squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm who have worked and fought with the Royal Air Force from shore stations at home and overseas. At the same time, the cohesion between the Royal Air Force and the Army grows ever closer. In the operations in Burma, Field Marshal Wavell has described the support given by the Royal Air Force to the Army as "both close and good."
Our Air Forces in India have been strongly reinforced and are being organised on broad and sound foundations by Air Chief Marshal Peirse. The Indian Air Force, too, is growing, and the Air Officer Commanding commented very favourably on the work of No. 1 Squadron during the Burma campaign. Two decorations have been won by its pilots.
In the Middle East, the course of the fighting has been marked by the growing strength and superb efficiency of the air forces under Air Chief Marshal Tedder, and by the increasingly close knitting together of Army and Air; American squadrons too have fought magnificently alongside our own. The heroic achievements of the Royal Air Force in the retreat from Gazala have already been described in the House, but perhaps hon. Members are less familiar with the story of the fighting in Rommel's last abortive offensive against Egypt. In six days during the month of September, the Royal Air Force dropped 800 tons of bombs, or one bomb every 71 seconds day and night, with an estimated average concentration of 25,000 lbs. of bombs per square mile per hour. Nine hundred and twelve fighter sorties were flown on bomber escort during the same six days, and not one bomber was lost from escorted formations.
The outstanding features of the El Alamein campaign from the air point of view were the success of the attack against Rommel's sea-borne supplies, which made him short of petrol and other necessaries, before the battle started, the achievement from the outset of almost total air superiority enabling a very great proportion of our aircraft to be employed in attacking the enemy on the ground, and the manner in which,

throughout the great advance, the squadrons kept up with the forward elements of the Army, leap-frogging from one landing-ground to another, arriving there almost as soon as the enemy had departed; while the transport aircraft supplying the squadrons carried wounded men back to hospital. Between the opening of the Battle of El Alamein on 23rd October, 1942, and the end of February, 1,075 enemy aircraft have been captured—some of them intact—on landing grounds, besides 402 destroyed in air contest during the same period, a total of 1,477 destroyed and captured as against our loss of 345.
In this advance also we found proof of the fighting spirit and good training of the Royal Air Force Regiment. Never was the Royal Air Force Regiment intended only for the defence of airfields at home. Its duty is to defend against attack air bases in the forward areas, from which our offensive forces are operating, both in this country and overseas. Such was the spirit they showed in the Western Desert that on more than one occasion they pressed forward to occupy an aerodrome in the van of the advancing infantry. Similarly, in Tunisia, the Royal Air Force Regiment has been in the forefront of the occupying forces, and only the other day General Eisenhower reported that an advance towards Cap Serrat had been repulsed with casualties to the enemy by the French forces and the Royal Air Force Regiment.
I have always told the House that it is the policy of the Air Ministry—as I know it is of the Admiralty and of the War Office, although it would be presumption on my part to speak for them—to promote not merely co-operation but the closest possible cohesion between the three Services in all the operations of war. The outstanding achievements of the glorious 8th Army and the Western Desert Air Force, and the close and intimate combination between them, both in the retreat from El Gazala and in the advance from El Alamein, are clear proof of the progress which has been made during the past year. General Auchinleck, General Alexander and General Montgomery, in close understanding with Air Chief Marshal Tedder and Air Marshal Coningham, have worked out practical methods of combination between ground and air forces which have proved their soundness and will serve as an example in all future operations.
In a campaign such as that in the Western Desert, the Army has one battle to fight—the land battle. The Air Force has two. First, it must meet the enemy in the air; then it can intervene in the land battle, hitting the enemy land forces with all its strength. Gone are the old conceptions of the air umbrella over the Army and the squadrons split up into penny packets at the call of Commanders of small land formations. A division may report a concentration of 200 motor transport on its front, accompanied by armour, but it may be right to reject their request for air attack, for 18 or 20 miles away there may be a concentration of a thousand or more motor transport, indicating an armoured division or an even larger force. This concentration will probably affect the whole battle 12, 18 or 24 hours later, and it may be necessary to concentrate the whole weight of air attack on the big concentration and leave the smaller one to the troops on the ground.
Before and during the advance from El Alamein, it was not only the Western Desert Air Force that was engaged in the air battle. Behind it was the strategic air power operating under the orders of Air Chief Marshal Tedder in Cairo; and operations, which were co-ordinated with those of Air Chief Marshal Tedder by the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal, in London, were conducted by Bomber Command against centres of supply and communications in Italy. So bombs were sinking ships, smashing harbours and cutting Axis supplies needed for the battle hundreds and even thousands of miles away from El Alamein.
I hope these facts will disabuse once and for all the minds of hon. Members of the illusion that the Royal Air Force is fighting a separate war. True, it is fighting in a different element from the Army and the Navy. No longer is it the Air Force commanders alone who claim that they must control the battle in the air. No longer is it disputed that the Royal Air Force must exercise command of the available air power, with centralised control; that the supreme value of air power lies in its flexibility, which enables it to be directed rapidly from one objective to another; that the most ruinous error is to tie up air power in penny packets; that the soldier must not expect or wish to exercise direct command over air striking forces; and that the system in force in North Africa is one which gives the Army

the most complete air support at the time and place required.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: The right hon. Gentleman has said something very important. I seem to remember that the Prime Minister, not very long ago, gave an undertaking that the choice of tasks and targets would be at the discretion of the military officer in command of the operations. Is that now no longer the case?

Sir A. Sinclair: The position remains exactly as it has always been. The air officer commands the air battle but directs his forces in accordance with the directions of the Army commander.

Sir A. Southby: The tasks and targets are chosen by the Army commander?

Sir A. Sinclair: The directions are laid down by the Army commander, and the Air commander conforms to the general plan of the Army commander.
The secret of success is that the two Commands and Staffs, Army and Air, should work together at the same headquarters in complete harmony and with complete mutual understanding and confidence. I feel sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will agree with me that that secret has been discovered by the Army and Air Forces who have been fighting these battles in the Western Desert.

Captain C. S. Taylor: I hate interrupting my right hon. Friend on this point, but we know the success that has been achieved by the Eighth Army in that theatre of war. Are we really now applying the principles learned out there to the training of the troops here at home, so that they can take their place in future operations on the same lines?

Sir A. Sinclair: If my hon. and gallant Friend will allow me, I intend to make some observations on that very point. The soldier commands the land forces; the airman commands the air forces. Both commanders work together, and during the land battle the available air forces are operated wholly in support of the Army commander's plan.
In North-West Africa our squadrons have had to fight in very adverse conditions. While the enemy were able to use fine modern airfields at Tunis and Bizerta,


our squadrons had to use much more primitive airfields without concrete runways, and deep in mud. Moreover, our squadrons have had to cross the mountains to reach the battle area, so low cloud and bad weather have been much more of a handicap to us than to the Germans. Nevertheless, the British and American Air Forces in North-West Africa have destroyed 767 enemy aircraft, while their losses have amounted to 392, of which the Royal Air Force have lost 171. General Anderson speaks enthusiastically of the support given to him by the Royal Air Force. "I cannot tell you," he says, "how grateful we are for the splendid help you have given to the First Army."
This campaign was notable for the first employment of our serviceing Commandos. They are composed of highly skilled mechanics trained to fight—men with a spanner in one hand and a tommygun in the other. One particular Commando maintained four fighter squadrons at a high rate of operations for approximately three weeks. The squadron and maintenance personnel, working in the early stages on aerodromes deep in mud, in extremely primitive conditions, and with meagre supplies reaching them along slender lines of communication, showed infinite resource. During the first month that two Wellington squadrons operated in North-West Africa they dropped over 700,000 lbs. of bombs, and their serviceability averaged over 80 per cent. Behind the squadrons, the repair and salvage units organisation was gradually built up until, by the end of last month, the Air Officer Commanding was able to tell me that the equivalent of six day fighter squadrons and one night fighter squadron, in addition to Blenheims, Hudsons, Wellingtons and Mosquitos, had already been repaired and sent forward to the front-line squadrons.
Now I come to the point my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Captain Taylor) raised. The lessons of these combined air, land and sea operations in Africa are being learnt in this country. The main responsibilities for applying them rests on Army Co-operation Command. It is not only, however, on the squadrons of Army Co-operation Command that the Army will rely when it is fighting on the Continent of Europe. The whole resources of the Royal Air Force will be united with those of the

Army to destroy the air and land power of the enemy. Accordingly, bombers and fighters train and exercise with the Army. To-day the whole of the day fighter squadrons in Fighter Command, with very few exceptions, have exercised with the Army. In addition to the Army Co-operation squadrons, we have formed a number of special tank-buster and fighter-bomber squadrons for the particular purpose of giving close support to troops in battle. The Commander-in-Chief of Army Co-operation Command has visited the Middle East and seen the Western Desert Air Force in action. In addition, officers from the Middle East have returned to this country and given us the benefit of their recent experience and participated in combined Air-Army exercises. So the process strenuously continues of uniting and knitting together the Army and Air Services.
Now let me speak of the offensive air operations which we have conducted from this country. Sometimes they are spoken of as though they were quite independent of the other Services and of what was taking place in other theatres of war. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have already shown how the activities of Bomber Command are designed to help in the war at sea and in the war in Africa. Our main object, however, in all our operations during the past year has been to intervene effectively in the land struggle in the East and to take as much weight as possible off our Russian Allies. Fighter Command sweeps and escorted daylight bombing raids have been an important part of this policy. No longer can the Germans afford parity of loss with the Allied Air Forces. They need to conserve their strength. Accordingly, it is necessary to sting them into action by bombing sensitive targets. The advantage in air fighting, as the House knows full well, lies with the air force fighting over its own territory, as was shown in the Battle of Britain, in the operations over this country, and again in the heroic island of Malta, where in the past year we have shot down 917 enemy aircraft for the loss of 363. In these offensive sweeps, on the other hand, our fighters find the enemy fighters in position, taking every advantage of cloud and light, and the necessity of protecting the bombers limits their power of manœuvre. Nevertheless, parity in the infliction of casualties—and much more besides, as I shall presently show—


has been achieved by our splendid pilots—a remarkable proof of their prowess and of the superiority of their tactics, training and equipment over those of the enemy. We have lost 600 fighter aircraft shot down by German fighters and guns. But our fighters and guns have inflicted a loss over this country and France during the same period of 655 on the enemy. Moreover, of more than 2,500 bombers escorted by our fighters, fewer than 50 have been lost. The result of these attacks has been to compel the enemy to keep his finest fighters and pilots in Western Europe all through the hard battles in Russia and in Africa.
It is not easy to make the German High Command take its eye off the ball. The ball is the Russian Army. The German Army is clamouring for air support. Yet little more than a quarter of the German lighter force is strung out from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and nearly double that number is held in Western Europe by the offensives of Bomber Command and Fighter Command. In addition, important factories working for Germany in Occupied France have been destroyed, transport has been dislocated, and, in particular, the attacks on locomotives have filled French railway workshops to congestion and made them into ripe targets for our day bombing. Of those targets our day-bomber squadrons and the redoubtable American Fortresses and Liberators are taking full advantage. In the last four months of 1942 bombers and fighters operating from this country destroyed or seriously damaged 100 locomotives, and locomotive shortage in Germany and in the Occupied Territories is acute. The situation in Northern Europe is particularly serious, so serious that the Germans have withdrawn all locomotives from areas in the South of France and have even returned to North-Eastern France locomotives previously requisitioned for use in Germany. We know that a shortage of locomotives has hampered the movements of the German Armies in Russia. So Fighter Command, operating in association with Bomber Command and with our Allied squadrons, has had an effect on the campaigns in Russia and Africa.

Mr. Stokes: Is not the Russian railway gauge different from the Western European gauge?

Sir A. Sinclair: Yes, but they have changed the gauge. The past 12 months have been marked by striking changes in the conduct and effectiveness of the bomber offensive. There has been a great advance in our method of handling the bomber force as a single flexible hard-hitting weapon, and in our means of finding and concentrating an attack upon the selected targets. Our bombs have improved, and will continue to improve. The 1,000-bomber raids, the 1,000-ton raids, the devastation of a long roll of German cities, and the heavy daylight attacks carried into the heart of Germany and Italy mark the past year as a period of successful exploitation of progressive tactical and technical developments.
The weight of our attack increases steadily. In each separate month during the past year more bombs have been dropped than in the corresponding month a year before, and the relative increase has been particularly marked most recently. In spite of bad weather, the tonnage of bombs dropped in January this year was only surpassed three times in 1942. In February, with a delivery of over 10,000 tons of bombs, including three 1,000-ton raids, Bomber Command dropped more than half as much again as in any previous month. In the first ten days of March more than 4,000 tons of bombs have been dropped. We have now obtained photographs of the attack on Essen on the night of 5th-6th March, and the House will be interested to learn that this proves to have been probably the heaviest blow struck at German war industry in the whole course of the Bomber offensive. In the Krupps Works 13 main buildings have been destroyed or severely damaged, and damage has been seen in at least 40 other factory buildings, sheds and workshops. The majority of these are in the steel works, and include heavy damage to such key sections as furnaces, foundry and forges. In all, the severe damage to workshops and administrative buildings covers 136,000 square yards. Other industrial damage in this area includes the part destruction of pithead installations and buildings of three coal mines. There was a direct hit on the Essen Power Station, while damage to the gasworks extends over an area of 3½ acres. Immediately to the east of the Krupps Works there is total destruction of a built-up area of 160 acres, and it is estimated that there is a total of 450 acres where at least 75 per cent. of the buildings have


been demolished or gutted. Two days after the attack fires were still burning. Some 30,000 people in Essen, most of whom were employed in the Krupps Works, have lost their houses, and many thousands in addition have been rendered temporarily homeless. The devastation shown in the photographs is comparable only with that achieved in the 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne.
Elsewhere, large-scale destruction of Germany's industrial centres has continued. The toll of devastation grows, in Wilhelmshaven 118 acres—including the utter destruction of the arsenal—in Rostock 130 acres, in Mainz 135 acres, in Lubeck 200 acres, in Karlsruhe 260 acres, in Dusseldorf 380 acres, in Cologne 600 acres together with a total of many thousands of acres of industrial property devastated in other towns.

Sir Granville Gibson: Is it intended to show photographs such as those which proved so interesting a few months ago?

Sir A. Sinclair: Certainly, if hon. Members want it done, I shall be glad to do it.

Sir G. Gibson: Hon. Members who saw those photographs found them most interesting.

Sir A. Sinclair: I will gladly comply with my hon. Friend's suggestion. The House will recall the great raid on Berlin, of which we are not yet able to assess the results, but report has it that we hit the Air Ministry—I cannot confirm the report, but if it is true it is good, and it is not too good to be true. This week Munich and Nuremberg, those unholy cities of the Nazi cult, have been hit hard. In all, we reckon that Bomber Command has destroyed or seriously damaged some-ting like 2,000 factories and industrial works. Substantially more than a million people have been rendered homeless, not counting the large numbers who have been evacuated for fear of air attack, rendering towns in the Eastern parts of Germany, Berlin among them, almost intolerably overcrowded. Direct damage to steel works in the Ruhr and Saar has caused a loss of 1,250,000 tons of steel, and the total loss of steel must be much greater than this. We know that the daily output of coal in the Ruhr fell by 20 per cent. in three months last summer,

and that in the latter half of 1942 coal exports to Sweden and Italy, partly through shortage of coal, and partly through dislocation of communications, were markedly diminished. Much working time has been lost in industry through absenteeism and the dislocation of transport. The necessity to re-provide stocks of household goods has tied up materials and labour which would otherwise have been free to make munitions.
The heavy damage in the Phillips Radio Works at Eindhoven has resulted in a loss to the Axis of no small proportion of their total production of radio valves, amounting to millions of valves annually. The Nazis produced, in addition, much specialised electrical equipment, and maintained important research laboratories in these works. In view of the vital importance of radio devices in this war and of the delicacy of the apparatus required to produce them, this attack must have resulted in a further marked reduction in the war power of Germany.
In Italy about two-thirds of the total industrial production is centred in Milan, Turin and Genoa. Each of these three cities has been attacked with heavy damage. In Turin 70 factories were damaged, including severe damage to the Lancia Works, responsible for a substantial proportion of the total output of lorries, and to 10 of the Fiat factories making rolling stock, lorries, tanks and aero engines. In Genoa, 7 acres in the dockyards were laid waste. Warehouses were burnt out, and the greater part of the business centres destroyed. In Milan, the damage has included factories engaged in electrical engineering, aircraft production and the manufacture of lorries. Rail communications have also been seriously affected. The information which I have given the House about the effects of the bomber offensive is conservative, and is in large part based upon the interpretation of photographs, which have to be taken, often in the face of opposition, by aircraft flying at great heights. We know that these photographs do not tell the whole story, and the economic effect of our offensive is undoubtedly greater than the sum of the individual items of destruction which we are able to assess. As the House will appreciate, the destruction of an important sub-contractor's factory may well have an effect on production much exceeding the output of the individual factory.
Praise the men who are striking these hammer blows at German might—fearless young men flying through storm and cold and darkness higher than Mont Blanc, through the flak, hunted by the night fighters, but coolly and skilfully identifying and bombing these targets. They are sustained by the knowledge of duty well done, and of high achievement, and they deserve our thanks and praise. Many people were saying a year ago that the Bomber offensive would be defeated by the increasing power of the German defences. I told the House then that the harvests of many long months of patient and strenuous work by scientists, designers and the staffs of the Air Ministry and of Royal Air Force Commands and of the Ministry of Aircraft Production were ripening. Several rich harvests have been reaped in the past year, and more will be reaped in the coming year. Moreover, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and his commanders and staffs have displayed extraordinary fertility in tactical ideas. The monster raids saturating the enemy's active and passive systems of defence is one example. A second is the success achieved in finding, marking and illuminating targets which has contributed enormously to the recent triumphs of Bomber Command. We shall spare no exertion to ensure that the development of our tactics and equipment will continue to outstrip the improvements in the German defences.
The past year has witnessed the deployment in this country, side by side with our own forces, of increasing numbers of American heavy bombers. Many of these have gone to Africa, but more are coming to take their place. The Americans are lion-hearted and skilful fighters. Their methods are the complement of ours. They are precious and welcome Allies, and the more American bombers come to take part in the air offensive against Germany, the better we shall be pleased, and the sooner the malignant power of Germany will be broken.
In a few days the Royal Air Force will celebrate the 25th year of its foundation. Born in the critical months of the first World War, in this greater struggle it has grown to strong manhood and has nobly justified the faith of its creators. The heroism of its pilots and crews, the determination and resource of its commanders, the foresight, freedom and supple realism

of its Staff thought and doctrine, and the devotion and skill of all the men and women who work for it on the ground, have enabled the Royal Air Force to add lustre to its own traditions and to render faithful and glorious service to its King and Country. Let no one at this date under-estimate the strength of the enemy or the power and variety of his resources. This is no time for relaxing in any direction the concentration of our effort for victory. The fighting strength and the exertions of the Royal Air Force have increased, are increasing, and in the coming year will mount.

Mr. Stokes: The right hon. Gentleman has told us something of the activities of Bomber Command and their frequent excursions over Germany. Is he able to give the House the percentage of the losses—not the actual losses—over the whole of Europe?

Sir A. Sinclair: No, Sir, I cannot give the percentage losses, but I shall be very glad if this indication meets the wishes of my hon. Friend. In the last month or two at any rate—for which I have the figures clearly in my mind—the rate of losses has been less than it was in the same months a year ago.

Mr. Montague: The Secretary of State for Air always gives us a dramatic account, and usually a long one, and he has not departed to-day from the precedents he has set on former occasions. I would like to associate myself with what he has had to say about the courage, efficiency and fortitude of the Royal Air Force in all the operations of the year under review, but I would ask one or two questions of the Secretary of State in reference to policy connected with the bombing offensive. The vivid account which he has given us of the bombing offensive upon Germany, the emphasis he has placed upon its continually growing strength and the promise of further strength, is supported by the effect that is indicated in the Press of Germany and by the Nazi radio spokesman's protest about that bombing. We have read Dr. Bauer's statement and that of others given over the German radio, in which a note has been struck that is very different from the note that both the German radio and German Press struck at the time of the war upon Britain. It is a note of pity for the suffering of the English people and the loss of English people's homes, if you


please, and the statement that the German Government, and presumably the German people, would like to see the bombing of cities eliminated; that they hate this kind of warfare, for which, of course, Britain is held to be responsible and which, we are told, Britain has the responsibility of initiating. We may compare that with the exultation on the Nazi radio in the autumn and winter of 1941–42. The glorification of the attacks upon Coventry and London, and the films prepared for the edification of the people of Berlin and other German cities showing what had been done quite wantonly at Warsaw and Rotterdam—although they might have shown to the German people at that time the victories of the Luftwaffe—are an indication of the hypocrisy of the present attitude. That is expressed for particular purposes, no doubt, in German propaganda.
But there is an aspect of this question of bombing which I would like to consider myself and would also like the Secretary of State to consider and which, spoken about, leads somewhat to the danger of one being misunderstood. British policy is not a policy of revenge. The Secretary of State has more than once himself expressed his views about the soundness of British policy in attacking the ports, the factories and the transport of Germany, but I could not help thinking, in listening to the speech that has just been delivered, that there was rather a suggestion, if not of change of policy perhaps a change of angle upon that particular subject. I noticed that he referred to the fighter bombers and their excursions into occupied territory and even, he said, into Germany.

Sir A. Sinclair: I did.

Mr. Montague: But when he came to speak of the bombing offensive itself he was full of exultation, justifiably, but he rather suggested or used phrases which might appear to suggest in this country among our own people and among people abroad that he was exulting in the destruction of German cities. I do not want to be misunderstood. It is right that the German people should be taught what war really is. They have inflicted war upon Europe and upon the world on many occasions, and they expected to get away with it this time, and were told that they would get away with it this time without

knowing the kind of experience that they would inflict upon other people, and they were told that Germany would not be bombed.
I want to ask whether there is any change of policy. I do not think there is. I believe it is true that our objectives are the war production and the transport of Germany, and that all the skill of our pilots is directed to these pin-point objectives. It is, of course, true that you cannot bomb huge factory areas without involving residential areas that are congested around them, but I do not like the idea even if Nuremburg is, as the right hon. Gentleman described it, one of the hell-holes or something of the kind of the Nazis——

Sir A. Sinclair: Unholy city.

Mr. Montague: The unholy city of the Nazi movement of Germany. It is not a pleasant thought to contemplate the destruction of a city like Nuremburg, and it would be a good thing if the Secretary of State would take the opportunity of reaffirming the policy that this country has adopted and that which he himself has expressed with regard to bombing. I do not like the idea of wanton destruction. I do not believe that he does, and I am sure that the people of this country do not want wanton destruction. We ought to say so, because it will be remembered that one explanation of the comparative paucity of attacks upon Italy at one time was that we had done well in destroying the principal Italian war factories. That was one of the arguments that was put forward.

Mr. Logan: In asking the Minister to re-define policy, does my hon. Friend want to be sentimental about the dropping of bombs on Germany, in view of what has happened in this country?

Mr. Montague: If my hon. Friend will be patient for a moment, I will deal with that point. Perhaps he will allow me to point out that not long ago the argument was used that we should, as a reprisal, bomb German villages one by one. Against that it was said that it would be futile, that it was not the kind of thing the Royal Air Force ought to be required to do and that we were doing much better by bombing the war potential of Germany. I hope we are standing by that


If my hon. Friend means by that sentimentalism, then I do not want to be sentimental. I want to be thoroughly practical upon the matter and to ask the House to realise the necessity for bombing industrial cities of Germany and the centres of war production. The German people must be made to realise what war actually means. But will it effect the result of the war? The German people are no more cowards than we are, and I suggest that it is far better that we should regard the question of reprisals not from the standpoint of revenge, whatever our feeling may be about it. My hon. Friend's feelings on that subject are just as sentimental as others.

Mr. Logan: Germany acquiesced in this destruction. Their people did not worry about us.

Mr. Montague: But that is no reason why we should not look upon the question of policy from the point of view of our own honour, our own ideas and feelings of what is right and advisable for our policy. I am not suggesting we are doing anything of the kind. I believe we are maintaining our policy of concentrating upon military objectives, but I think it is important that we should state to the world that there is no departure of policy, that we are not bombing the people of Germany—women and children, to use another sentimental phrase—merely for its wanton sake. The way in which some of the facts of our bombing have been presented rather suggests that there has been some change of policy in that matter. On the other hand, there is the hypocrisy of the Government which has been responsible for the extermination of the Jews, bestial warfare, torture in Russia and enslavement of the conquered races, and we are still determined that we shall do our best with our fine material, pilots and organisation to bring home to Germany the real meaning of their attack on the civilisation of the world.
I welcome the statement made by the Secretary of State for Air about the formation of a Transport Command. I can only say that it is a pity that it has been so belated. The problem of transport is one that has been before the Air Ministry and the other Services connected with air transport—and I am thinking, too, of the Ministry of Aircraft Production—for a long time. There have been problems of

organisation which have been very difficult. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary will know what I refer to in respect of ferry pilots and so forth. If these things had been done before, we might have had a far better transport service in relation to the operation of the force as well as to ferrying from America to this country. There is to be an Amendment later, to be moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke), upon the subject of civil aviation, and I will not presume to go into details of the question on Vote 8 except to say a few words about the larger element of policy involved in relation to transport planes for post-war needs. There has been a great demand for the utilisation of our aircraft designers, the assumption being that we have plenty and to spare—which we have not—so that we shall have, out of our transport development during the war, the basis of a highly efficient civil transport aeroplane service. I take a rather different line from that which has been expressed in connection with the whole question of civil transport after the war and development during the war towards that end. Behind the arguments that have been put in this House in respect of that development has been the assumption that we have to prepare for vast commercial competition, especially with America, although not much has been said about Russia, which is also important from the point of view of civil aviation. It is said that America are in the field first, that they are applying 25 per cent. of their production to civil purposes, and that we shall be left behind to the disadvantage of our trade and commerce. I do not accept that view.
I would like to quote from an extremely important speech that has not been as widely accepted as it deserves. It is the second of two speeches made by the Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Henry Wallace, during the last day or two. He said:
It is urged that, after the war, American aviators ought to be permitted to fly everywhere in the world and that not a single foreign plane would ever fly over any part of the United States. This astonishing idea seems to be first cousin to the fallacy that we can sell our goods everywhere in the world at the same time that we keep foreigners from selling to us. This visions an Imperialistic fight for air supremacy between at least three great nations of the world—a fight which can end finally only in world war No. 3, or American domination of the type which will eventually make


the United States worse hated in the world than the Nazis ever have been. We do not want an Imperialistic American supremacy in the air and on the sea from which we shall get insecurity and war at a tremendous outlay of the taxpayers' money and our children's blood.
That is a counter-blast to the statements made recently by Representative Claire Luce, who said that the freedom of the seas failed to prevent the first and second world wars and there was no reason to think that the freedom of the air would prevent a third world war.
She also said that Representatives were not elected by their constituents to preside over the liquidation of America's best interests. I think it is a pity that there should be on the American side, and our own, this conception of a fight for trade after the war, in which aircraft will play a part. I would suggest to the Secretary of State that we cannot compete with America in building planes of this character. Even if we could, what advantage would it have? Has not the whole question of the development of civil aviation after the war been exaggerated? I think it has been grossly exaggerated. I read an article by Major Thornton recently which pricked the bubble involved in the suggestion that everybody will be using aircraft after the war, that all our goods will be carried by aircraft. There is no likelihood of it at all. Some types of goods, probably very expensive goods, can be carried at a price. But the great bulk of our trade and transport of goods will have to be done by sea. Aircraft will never be a cheap way of getting a thing or person from A to B.
Major Thornton states that as a measure of the effort and cost an 11-knot ship can propel a useful load of 3.3 tons for one unit of energy whereas an aircraft can carry only about 9 lbs. Give the aircraft the value of its 200 miles an hour against the ship's 12½ knots and the aircraft does in an hour 1,800 pound-miles of work per horse-power. The ship does 92,512. In any event the idea that we have to compete with America not only for trade but in manufactured aircraft is surely out of account. I am not suggesting that we ought not to produce civil aircraft or develop our transport planes. We were dependent upon America for a long time except for Avro-York planes. There is a field in which we can enter; let us take it

in our stride. Supposing our world trade objective is unilateral and there is any unilateral advantage in trade—and surely that is not the case; it is mutual—why should we not let a country like America produce what planes she can produce best and let us do the same? Why not accept an allocation and division of effort between ourselves and America, as we have done for war necessities? Great Britain is building the world's best fighters and heavy and light bombers, while the United States are building the best medium bombers, good high-flying bombers, naval aircraft and large numbers of fine military transport planes. If there is a sensible allocation of effort for war, why not for peace? By all means let us develop civil transport of our own in all desirable directions, but what advantage would it be after the war if we could compete with America, because only expensive and fragile articles can be carried economically, apart from a certain amount of passenger traffic? Only passengers to whom money is of comparatively little account in business will use civil aircraft.
More than anything else we want to get rid of the ridiculous anomalies, the corridors and the restrictions, that have existed in the past and to establish a real and not an artificial freedom of the air. There ought to be a commission dealing with these matters now. The representatives of the Allied Nations are in London at the present time. We ought to get to work to see that there is an international arrangement, that there is stabilisation of prices and things of that kind, and, as I have said, that a real freedom of the air is established. I do not wish to speak more on civil aviation, as the matter will be dealt with in greater detail on the Amendment later.
I think it is a great pity that the quarrel between the Services, particularly between the Navy and Royal Air Force, has not been resolved. I know that it takes two to make a quarrel and that probably the Secretary of State for Air will protest that he is not quarrelling, but judging by the statements that were made in the Debate yesterday and some of the statements made recently in Debates in another place, there have been considerable differences between the Navy and the Royal Air Force in regard to priorities, and so on. It was stated yesterday by a naval Member that the Navy got its first


Hurricanes after the Royal Air Force found no further use for them and that the same thing applied to the Spitfires. In his speech the Secretary of State seemed to me rather to be putting the Army in its place. He spoke about Army co-operation, saying that it was perfectly sound and mutual and that it had been developed and was in fine fettle, but at the same time he seemed to me to suggest that, after all, these questions depend upon the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry to a very large extent. I think we want to get between the Royal Air Force and the Navy the same co-operation as the right hon. Gentleman claims exists between the Royal Air Force and the Army.
Probably one of the troubles is that an aircraft carrier is a development of a battleship and is gun-defended to a much larger degree perhaps than is necessary. I should imagine that the most important means of defence for an aircraft carrier would be aircraft, but it is lumbered up with guns and more guns, there are very narrow openings to lifts and so on, the result being that only the older types of aircraft, such as those with folding wings, have been used on aircraft carriers. I do not suggest that the argument goes all one way, but I do suggest it is time there was some unity of thought on this subject and that neither in respect of the Army nor of the Navy should there be differences on policy or on the applica-of policy.
There is one question I would like to put to the Secretary of State in regard to the development of aircraft and the air defence of the Merchant Navy. There has been the arrangement with regard to allocations between this country and America, and I think that principle should still apply, but I notice there have been some new developments recently in America, and I want to ask whether we are getting from America the right proportion of the new types of aircraft. There is, for instance, a development of the helicopter. As a layman, I do not know much about the technical side of aircraft, but I think there should be a future for a modified type of helicopter for use in the 600 miles in the middle of the Atlantic where there is the U-boat menace and where protection is required for transports to this country. Is there any idea of utilising the helicopter, which has been modified for sea use and which

seems to be an excellent thing? The American product can deal with depth charges and can land in a comparatively limited space, as it weighs only 2,400 lbs. and measures 38 feet by 12 feet, carrying a pilot and passenger.
With regard to the production of dive-bombers, I have never taken the view which has been held by many people that we have been wrong in our policy concerning dive-bombers. I think we have been right. However, there is a limited use for dive-bombers. I believe dive-bombers could be used in the Mediterranean in the narrows between Tunisia and Sicily where the supporting land-based aircraft are not so far away. Sir Thomas Blarney has said that the moral effect of dive-bombers is great perhaps but that the destructive effect is small, and that the fighter-bomber does more damage, that there is less cost in aircraft and as much moral effect in the long run. Therefore, I ask whether we are getting our share of the American allocation in the right proportion. There is the Grummer Avenger, a very devastating torpedo bomber, as has been shown in the Pacific war; there is the Martlett, America's Wildcat, a good ship-borne fighter, not to mention the allocations of the new helicopter to which I have referred, and the converted Mustang, which is, in effect, a dive-bomber. I think those points are apropos of the statements that have been made in respect-of the Fleet Air Arm and its relation to the Air Ministry.
May I turn now to two questions concerning domestic policy on which I should like to have some information? I welcome the decision that was announced to the House yesterday by the Secretary of State by which members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force are no longer compelled to act as officers' servants. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) is to be congratulated on having raised that matter. I would like to ask why should that principle of domestic service be applied in the case of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force either in camp or in regard to officers living away from camp? I think the idea that women should join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in order to become domestic drudges does not attract the women of this country, and I do not think there is any need for it. Surely, there could be some kind of arrangement made


in camp for all those essential services that concern the needs of officers without there being any personal touch about it, and outside the camp the 2s. allocation ought to be expanded and be the general rule. After all, volunteering is always invidious, and I do not think it is altogether a solution of that particular problem.
The other matter to which I want to refer is one on which I and other hon. Members have received complaints and on which complaints have been made in letters to the Press, and it refers to conditions at some of the stations of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. There is a lack of facilities for bathing, and conditions similar to those which Nicholas Nickleby found on his first morning at Dotheboys Hall, when he had to break the ice in order to get some water for washing and did not have anything but a dirty towel and a very small one at that. I cannot give the Under-Secretary of State precise particulars and I am speaking in a very general way, but I am assured the complaints have substance in them, and that as many as 500 girls have to depend upon about half-a-dozen shower baths where the water is more often cold than hot, where they have to go to bed without washing and get up and have their breakfast without washing, and in the cold weather have to queue up for washing in small huts a long way from their quarters. I ask that that matter be looked into, because there is a great deal of Press correspondence on the subject and Members of Parliament receive letters complaining very bitterly about the way in which the women are treated in that respect.
Finally, we do not want to have any jealousy between the United Nations. We need a clear understanding of the needs of peace and the needs of war. We should rejoice in our mutual war effort, which can be made the foundation for international co-operation in peace time. Our vision ought not to be one of commercial rivalry, either the rivalry of trade or the rivalry of peoples on a war footing. I know that pilots are international-minded. On this side of the House, hon. Members stand for internationalisation. That question bristles with difficulties. After the war there will be the whole problem of the United Nations and their relationship to the rest of the world and to Europe, in

particular, and that problem will not be an easy one to settle. I think we should have before us as a beacon light the idea of internationalisation. I think it will be possible to get a tremendous amount of international co-operation if we are fair to each other in different countries, if we try to look at mutual problems from a mutual point of view, which cannot be done if we make the kind of claim that we must be on top of America or some other country and make preparations now in order that commercial competition shall go on. For instance, I suggest that after the war we should operate our air transport system in this country as the peace time function of an international air force. I cannot go into that matter now, except to say that there must be an international air force or something comparable to it, because it will only be on the basis of international solidarity in its highest form that we shall have the right to dictate to any nation, even to Germany, when the war is over about its air future. Therefore, I say we must not come on to the rock of commercial jealousy.

Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes: I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his broad survey, which, as usual, was most interesting. I shall only follow the remarks of the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague) on a few of the matters he raised. I want to confine my remarks to the question of air transport, which is, I think, an exceedingly important question at the present time. The invasion of Europe will be a Combined operation requiring the most intimate co-operation between the three Services, in which the heavy transport plane will play an indispensable part. Since the beginning of the war I have always thought that this winter would be the crucial period, and it now seems to me that the next few months are going to be of crucial importance. I have tried, therefore, to see what, if any, concrete suggestions I could make. While appreciating that in the past we have had to build fighters and bombers and to give them priority, I feel that we should give higher priority to transport machines than has been done hitherto. I congratulate the Secretary of State on the announcement that he intends to set up a Transport Command. I am sure that that is the right thing to do. I wish it had been done


before, and I only hope that, concurrently, he will be able to ensure that the new Command is fully equipped and fitted with the necessary machines and has the personnel and organisation available to take its place as rapidly as possible in the whole scheme of Air Force work.
It may be of interest to note one or two factors in regard to the growth of air transport as a strategic factor. I think it was the Russians who had the initial idea of starting strategical or transport arrangements in connection with air operations. The Germans followed it up very quickly and with really remarkable success. It has been said that no two wars are fought on the same lines, but this is only true to a limited extent. For instance, in 1917 there was a deadlock on the Continent, so now, as far as the Continent is concerned, there is practically the same position. We were then eyeing the Germans over a maze of barbed wire and entrenchments which could only be stormed at prohibitive cost; to-day, too, we are confronted by the Western shores of Europe bristling with wire, guns and tank traps. It is, therefore, of even greater importance now that the transport factor should be employed in trying to hit Germany in Germany as soon as possible. To do that, air transport must be used, not, as we have done hitherto, in small quantities, merely carrying a few paratroops here and there, but carrying large lumbers of men fully equipped and supporting them with reinforcements and munitions.

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Police (Appeals) Act, 1943.
2. Universities and Colleges (Trusts) Act, 1943.
3. House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1943.
4. Clydebank and District Water Order Confirmation Act, 1943.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

AIR ESTIMATES, 1943

Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

Sir F. Sykes: I was trying to explain why in my opinion air transport was of such great importance at the present time. The Prime Minister the other day gave us the very heartening piece of news that a combined plan of action had been formed to engage the enemy's force by land, sea and in the air on the largest possible scale and at the earliest possible moment. Of course, the War Cabinet alone can know when the time is ripe for such action to be taken, but I think that I am voicing the opinion of the House when I say that we hope that this definitely means that Russia will be able to continue her successful offensive, and that an Anglo-American attack can concurrently be launched on Germany in time to forestall Goebbels' "stable continuous front" in Germany. Can the requisite air fleets be assembled in time? As the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Islington told us, according to the policy agreed upon Britain is specialising upon fighters and certain types of bombers—and fighters and bombers have been obviously the first necessity—while the United States is devoting nearly one-third of her total production to transport planes.
There are, I would suggest, three short-range measures which might be adopted in order to meet the urgent demand. The first is to arrange with America to supply us with as many suitable transport aircraft as she can spare—and she is making vast numbers of them. The second is to expand the production of any temporarily suitable machines such as the Avro-York. The third is the possibility of designing a fuselage suitable for the purpose which could be fitted to existing wings and used with existing engines. I do not know whether that is possible. The great difficulty with regard to converting bombers for troop transport work is that the bomber naturally carries a concentrated load in a small space, whereas the transport carrier has to have a large space to carry the same load. As a long-range step I suggest that the War Cabinet should at once examine the position and if possible issue instructions to the Minister of Production to lay down an adequate programme—it may be late, but it is never too late to


start—specially designed for transport aircraft and put it into immediate execution.
I will not follow the hon. Member for West Islington in regard to some of the details he has mentioned, but I should like as he did to touch upon some points of a larger nature in regard to air transport in peace. I think that he agreed, although he does not go as far as I do, that air transport in future will be a great factor which this country and the Empire cannot disregard and should be prepared for on the right lines before peace comes. The world in general and the British Empire in particular will largely depend for markets upon rapid and widespread communications. Under present arrangements we shall be left with vast numbers of fighting and bombing aircraft, and America will be left with large numbers of transport aircraft. I cannot go as far as the hon. Member for West Islington in accepting that position. It would be a false position. In this as in most other matters we should try to depend upon ourselves, and I strongly urge that we at once set up a programme and carry it into effect. The programme could be modified in any way that is necessary for peace, but it should be continuous—war and peace. It is imperative that we should have a large fleet of air transport machines when the war ends. This is not only from the point of view of markets and their immense importance for the future prosperity of the world, but because there will be immediate post-war measures which can be best carried into effect by transport aircraft, such as carrying supplies of food to famine areas, helping policing arrangements in Europe and so forth, which will be semi-war and semi-peace measures. In brief, in carrying this method of transport into the peace there seem again to be three main factors. One is to ensure that the material is in being so that we can pass smartly from war to peace and not only material but organisation suitable to carry it out. The second is that we should have a definite understanding in regard to the peace organisation of air transport with the Dominions, the Empire and India.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I am sorry but the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is not entitled to go into the development of civil aviation in detail, having regard to the Amendment on the Paper.

Sir F. Sykes: The two questions are so closely linked that I felt it was imperative to carry the discussion from one to the other. The hon. Member for West Islington touched on the international arrangements and so forth, and I thought that if there were anything I could usefully say now, it would be better to do so than to try and speak later on the Amendment. I do not know whether I am in Order in pursuing points on the international side about which the hon. Member who has just sat down spoke, and on the inter-Imperial side?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Certainly not in any detail, but the matter can be generally referred to.

Sir F. Sykes: I bow to your Ruling. I agree with the hon. Member for West Islington that the international aspect is of paramount importance. A start should be made, a Commission should be set up to investigate it, but before that time comes it is of paramount importance that there should be a definite understanding between the various components of the Empire so that a certain policy can be set forth for consideration at an international conference. The major issue after the war will be the form which international control of flying is to take; for it is clear that there must be international control of some sort. We cannot without disaster tolerate unrestricted competition in the air. If we can evolve some method of carrying this out, it may well form the stepping-stone to dealing with other matters internationally. I look upon this question not only as a war measure, not merely as an ordinary peace measure, but as a measure leading from war to peace and to what we all hope will be a general international understanding, without which, on this matter as on so many others, the world cannot carry on at all. I hope that in this matter of air transport we shall grapple the question at once. I hope that we shall have the material and organisation available. We shall certainly have the personnel available from the vast numbers of Air Force officers and men and the innumerable workers in aircraft factories. All that will be available, but it will all want organising beforehand in order to pass speedily and satisfactorily from war to peace. Then comes the question of inter-Empire policy, and I would like to add a word in regard to India. It is one of the most important aspects of inter-Empire air policy that


India should be considered and dealt with in the general scheme. We must get representatives of the Empire together and come to some understanding. This would be a move of primary importance to the world as a whole. The key words for air transport for peace are an immediate improvement and expansion of material, an agreed inter-Imperial policy, and international co-operation. This last is absolutely vital to world peace.
In conclusion I should like in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State upon his interesting survey of the Royal Air Force to convey my congratulations also to the whole of the Royal Air Force on what they have done and what they are doing. It is a great pride to me to follow their doings, and I can only hope that when it comes to the peace, unlike after the last war, as many as possible of the officers and men will find their opportunity in British Commonwealth air transport services for which they will be so well qualified.

Mr. Purbrick: The story that we have been told by the Secretary of State for Air is, indeed, a very gallant story. It is a story of hard work bravely done. There is very little in it that one can criticise, but I want to criticise it on one point. That is in regard to dive-bombers, about which there has been considerable controversy and about which I have asked for a good deal of information at different times. Sometimes the replies have been satisfactory and sometimes unsatisfactory. At the outbreak of war, as the Secretary of State told us in his speech a year ago, the enemy had great successes with the use of dive-bombers. In Holland, Norway, Poland and Belgium, in the fall of France, in Greece and Crete and in Singapore and Malaya they were successful under the conditions under which they were operating. The Americans developed them, the Russians have been using them, and we alone of all the Fighting Forces have not been equipped with them until now.
Any light aeroplane that is properly equipped with brakes can operate as a dive-bomber if it is a bomber or a dive-fighter. If it is a fighter or fighter-bomber, it can if it has brakes, do all three. The latest machines which the Germans have produced according to

reports will do long-range fighting, bombing and dive-bombing according to the conditions under which they are required to operate. To equip a machine with brakes adds very little to its weight and so detracts very little from its speed, and the greater manoeuvrability it has is a great benefit to it. In addition, it makes the machine much safer, which is an advantage both as regards the machines and the lives of our pilots who have to fly them. I think we all know the special advantages possessed by a dive-bomber. It is specially effective when one has to bomb a target with great precision. An ordinary bomber can bomb over a wide area, but for a smaller area the dive-bomber is particularly good, always providing that there is not heavy "flak" against it. It must have air protection, just like any other bomber. It is wrong to describe the dive-bomber as much more vulnerable than other types. We are told that the Germans used dive-bombers in the Battle of Britain, but that after two or three days they were a failure, because we shot down so many. The reason for that was that we had a very strong anti-aircraft defence; dive-bombers were not suitable for such work and should not have been used then. It would also be interesting to know whether the right hon. Gentleman could give us any idea of how many of those machines were shot down when they were diving and how many were shot down when doing normal flying.
In a recent statement by the right hon. Gentleman the suggestion was thrown out that the successes reported to have been achieved by dive-bombers were not always attained by them. I do not know whether he has any substantial evidence to that effect, but he has not given us any, and in its absence we must rather doubt whether that is the case. It is said that Germany is slackening off in the use of dive-bombers. Do we know whether that is so? If it is so, it is probably because our own defences have become so strong that the conditions under which Germany could operate dive-bombers successfully no longer exist. In spite of that, the Americans are now bringing their dive-bombers into play. Also we had a statement yesterday that the Navy are very glad to get dive-bombers, and we have been told that the Army are using them and that they are


coming into production now—but this is after 3½ years of the war.
My criticism is, Why did not we have them before when they would have been of a great deal of use to us? The Prime Minister told us last July that there was no question of not being able to get them, that the question of priority did not arise, that we were getting machines from America and that there was no question of priority regarding why we did not get dive-bombers. He told us that the Army and the Navy were crying out for them and that the Air Ministry were opposed to them. They had to go over the heads of the Air Ministry to the Ministry of Aircraft Production to get these first machines. I do not know whether any of the machines ordered in 1940 were ordered by the R.A.F. for their own use, or whether their orders applied to the machines that were ordered for the Army and subsequently, presumably, for the Navy.
In answer to a Question which I put down we were told that dive-bombers had to be of a very particular design, in which points had to be watched carefully, and that that was one of the reasons for the delay. How could there have been any reason for that delay when we had German dive bombers—because presumably we shot some down—and the Stormo-viks of the Russians to guide us and When America was also producing dive-bombers? If we were going to produce dive-bombers ourselves, surely we could have worked on their designs, and if we were going to rely upon America to produce them for us, surely what was good enough for the Americans ought to have been good enough for us. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that our pilots did not want dive-bombers. I do not know what experience our pilots have had of dive-bombing to be in a position to make such a statement, but we read only a few days ago that pilots got some Kittihawks and some Hurricanes and had them fitted as dive-bombers because they wanted to use them. I think our air-marshals are too prone to getting their own way and sticking to it when they have no right to do so. In this case they were opposed to dive-hombers before the war and were opposed to them during the war, and only now, when perhaps the field of utility may be less than it was in the past, are dive-bombers coming along.

Mr. Stokes: I want to open my remarks by addressing a few words to the Secretary of State for Air upon his opening speech and lodging once more a protest against the growing habit of Ministers of the Crown reading their speeches when they address this House. It is a most deplorable habit and is growing day by day. I looked up the records since I came into the House, and I find that of the last six Ministerial addresses from the Treasury bench five have been solemnly read word by word, with a member of the Gestapo in the box making quite sure that every word was uttered so that it could be altered in the official record if it was not. My right hon. Friend, for whom I have great respect, is a natural speaker—it is a matter upon which he prides himself—and I have sat behind him when he was on the benches here and admired the way in which he captured the House with his eloquence, and I submit that there was no excuse whatsoever for his performance today. I agree that factual things must be accurately stated—nobody would object to that—but 90 per cent. of his speech would have been much more enjoyable if he had delivered it from his heart instead of from the closely typewritten sheets in front of him. I know the Prime Minister always reads his speeches, but, as with so many other things, he does it in such a way that you do not realise that he is doing it. He puts on his long-distance glasses and stands back. I noticed, too, that those in the Press Gallery were not very busy with their pencils during the delivery of that speech, so I suppose they had copies too. If Ministers are going to make a habit of reading their speeches, I suggest that they should circulate copies of them among Members. That would shorten the Debate or give back-benchers more opportunity of addressing this House. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend will accept that proposal and recommend to the Leader of the House that that course should be followed in future. I will give way to him if he will assure me that that suggestion will have his support, as I am sure it has the support of everybody sitting here, and would have his support if he were sitting below me now.
Having made that protest, I will now take up some of the points which my right hon. Friend made in his address to us. I agree with the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. Purbrick) that he gave us a very comprehensive record of the amazing


feats of endurance and gallantry of our men and women in the Royal Air Force. I want to touch on only one or two of his points, and knowing this to be one of the many things in regard to which I do not share the general view of the House, I had better get it off my chest first. I do protest once again against the steady destruction of Europe by bombing, and I do not mind if I stand alone in this. I quite recognise the gallantry of the men who have to go out and do it, although I am sure a lot of them do not like it, but I feel nauseated when I think of the destruction of Nuremberg. I am not in the least compensated when I am told that Herr Hitler intended to destroy it himself as insanitary. I do not wish to bring the performances of our country down to Hitler's level. If he cannot appreciate buildings of magnificent beauty and historical regard, that is no reason why we should not do so. When the Secretary of State went on to talk about the attacks on Essen—and here I am leaving out the wiping-out of Krupps with which I agree—I did not share his gloating over the destruction of 160 acres of built-up area, and I do not believe the masses of this country share it either. I protest in the name of humanity that we should with such cold-bloodedness both talk of and engage in the perfectly merciless destruction and slaughter of the women and children of other nations, even though they may be our enemies.
But that is by the way. I know my view is not popular in this House. The more important strategic consideration to us here is whether we have enough bombers to carry on in this way and at the same time to provide sufficient strength for the guardianship of our Western Approaches. I have heard strange tales of the reluctance of the Air Ministry to find a sufficiency of four-engined bombers for the defence of those Approaches. I would ask the Secretary of State if he speaks again, or the Under-Secretary, if it is he who is to speak, to give us some assurance that the Admiral commanding the Western Approaches is completely satisfied that he has enough long-distance bombers to enable him to carry out the protection of those Approaches.
Like all others who have spoken on the marvellous and prodigious efforts of the R.A.F., I want to ask the Secretary of

State whether, in regard to what I call the United Nations area battlefront, we have an entirely square deal with our Allies. I make no criticism of the men or the operational staffs, who, I am sure, are admirable, or of the equipment. My "grouse," as usual, is against the central direction of the war. After all, it is our job here to go for the people at the top, as Ministers so often remind us when we want to get at somebody lower down, and to make sure that they are approaching these matters seriously enough and with their eyes open. As I understand it, the Air Force is still in what I may term an unbalanced state. We still have no air transporters. The Secretary of State said that air transporters were coming from America, but then so have dive-bombers been coming for a very long time, and when is it that we shall see the arrival of these machines from America? I take it that my right hon. Friend would agree that just as the American Air Force is at the moment unbalanced and we supply most of their fighters because theirs are no good, so, as a quid pro quo, the Americans should supply us with sufficient transporter planes to enable us to have a mobile air force. Sooner or later, I suppose, the Air Force will have to become even more mobile than it is now, and it will be steadily incapacitated and held back unless we can be assured that there is an immediate arrangement—not "coming," like Christmas or the dive-bomber, but an immediate arrangement—whereby we get our correct allocation of transport planes from America. As I understand it from talking to quite responsible people, the position is too one-sided at the moment, and it is quite time the matter was considered and satisfactorily dealt with.
Now I turn to an entirely different subject, and curiously I propose to touch on the land question. I want to talk about a matter which is near to my heart but a long way from the hearts of most other people in this House, and that is the appalling burden that has been placed upon the country by the compensation which has apparently to be paid to landlords for aerodrome sites. In this war the Government can requisition bodies, can kill hundreds of thousands of people and fail to compensate people for all kinds of damage that happens to their property, are even entitled, although they have not done it, in many instances, to conscript


property; but the landlord must have his pound of flesh.
I would remind the House of what happened before the war. Most people are aware where most of the aerodromes are, yet, for some extraordinary reason, it is now considered not to be in the interests of public security to say how much compensation has been paid to the owners of land on which those aerodromes stand. In 1937, for land totalling 26,500 acres and purchased by the Air Ministry, the Ministry paid £1,225,000. The landlords got approximately £46 an acre for land which was only worth about £10 an acre and often less. Since then there has been complete silence on the subject. I have tried to get information from the Secretary of State for Air and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, approaching them from different angles, on this matter, but I have always received the answer that it is not in the public interest to make any statement. There is no reason whatever why my right hon. Friend could not stand up at that Box and tell us, globally, how many acres have been purchased since the outbreak of the war and how much has been paid in compensation. If the country knew those figures, I believe people would rise in their wrath and say that we must stop this process. "It is bad enough," they would say, "to go out and perhaps to get killed, but if we have to pay for the land for which we are fighting before we fight, and then find most of it is not ours when we come back to it, it is not good enough." The Government certainly ought to do something about it, and the sooner the better.
You, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have ruled that I must not talk about Civil Aviation. I will not do so, but there are one or two general observations I wish to make following upon those made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Central Nottingham (Sir F. Sykes). Firstly, I want to obtain from the Secretary of State for Air an assurance that, in connection with the new organisation referred to in some of the daily papers this morning, no concession of any kind, a promise or even a half-promise, to anyone outside this country, has been made in regard to air transportation after the war. Secondly, is my right hon. Friend aware, as I have no doubt he is, with all the facilities at his disposal—I have been out of this country only once since the war started—of the

widespread anxiety that is felt here and overseas at the almost overwhelming appearance of American interests and American aircraft on the trans-African routes, and in India? People are taking very seriously to heart the feeling that the Government are not playing straight with the country and not telling us exactly what is going on. I am wondering whether it is not part of the great Downing Street sell-out to America. I know that is not a popular phrase, but some of us feel very hot under the collar about the matter.
Thirdly, I want to raise the whole question of the production of transporter planes. I think it was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production who, when I put a Question a short time ago at the ordinary Question hour as to what the Department were doing in this matter, said that bomber planes would make very good transporters. When the Minister said that, I replied "Bosh," and of course it is bosh; no one knows that better than my right hon. Friend. A bomber is designed for a concentrated load and for a limited variation in the position of the centre of gravity; a transporter has to carry widespread loads of an irregular nature and must have a much larger variation possible in the position of the centre of gravity. It is no use the Government sitting down comfortably and saying, "It will be all right in the end because we shall find ourselves with a lot of bombers which we can turn into planes for transportation purposes," because they cannot do that. I stress the importance of getting on with this job now. It takes four or five years to get a big machine off the drawing board. You cannot produce a tank from the drawing board in six months, whatever any Ministers of the Crown may say—it is not true. But this is only by the way. The bottle-neck in the aircraft industry to-day is the absence of sufficient skilled technical engineers and draughtsmen. That is the real bottle-neck on the production side. Will the Secretary of State give us an assurance that everything possible will be done to extract skilled men and draughtsmen from the Forces for this purpose? Any quantity of them have gone away; I myself have lost several who would make admirable workers and draughtsmen. They often are not doing technical work in the Armed Forces. It is essential that that


work should be got on with now, and that the capacity of these men should be made available. Otherwise, when the war ends, we shall find ourselves without any air transporters that are worth while.
I want to conclude by referring to what the Secretary of State said this morning about the new Command. The right hon. Gentleman slipped over it very quickly. He was a little impatient to get on with his script. I know that when I am speaking I sometimes cannot find what I want in my notes, and I am sure that if I had a script version, I should become literally mad if anybody tried to interrupt me. When the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) asked the right hon. Gentleman if he could give the name of the officer who is to take over the new Command, the right hon. Gentleman said, "No, I cannot"; but it is in the papers. Perhaps this information slipped out of the right hon. Gentleman's office by mistake—or was he following what is now the usual custom by sending it to the Press before telling this House? I cannot believe that the reputable newspapers who published the information this morning that the Commander-in-Chief of this new Command is to be Air-Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill——

Sir A. Sinclair: May I inform my hon. Friend that no decision has been taken as to who is to command the Transport Command? I have not the slightest doubt what has happened and why the name of that very distinguished officer has appeared in the newspapers. He is obviously one whose name would occur to any intelligent newspaperman as a possibility for an appointment of this kind; but there is no other foundation whatever, and no decision has been taken as to the appointment.

Mr. Stokes: It may be that the correspondent is telepathetic or has powers of prevision. Anybody who knows Sir Frederick Bowhill would agree that he would be a most admirable choice. I think the reason why my right hon. Friend did not tell us about this matter was that he did not want the matter discussed. I am going to assume that the newspaper is right. If not, the Secretary of State for Air will no doubt take the advice of the "Daily Mail" and the rest of the newspapers which published the information. Perhaps the news will only come out when the Fuehrer in Downing Street

has had time to put his name on the dotted line. What is to happen underneath? I am very sorry for these Air Marshals. If the Department is allowed to have its own way, they will be left with an appaling number of thugs to deal with. They will not have had the same experience of thuggery as some of us have had in this House. The House ought to know something about the history of British Airways. The newspaper went on to suggest that the British Overseas Airways Corporation was to be amalgamated into the——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: As I indicated, it is not in Order to go into the details on the subject matter of the Amendment.

Mr. Stokes: With great respect, Sir, I suggest that I am dealing with the setting-up of the Royal Air Force Transport Command, which is intended to control all forms of air transport for the duration of the war, and that that is proper for discussion in this Debate.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman will continue, I shall be able to see whether his remarks remain within the bounds of Order.

Mr. Stokes: I will do my best not to slip up. My right hon. Friend mentioned that there must be some sort of war-time control of civil aviation, but there is no civil aviation now.

Earl Winterton: May I call your attention Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to the fact that, in the course of his speech, the Secretary of State referred to this matter at some length, and may I respectfully suggest that it would be in Order not only for my hon. Friend to deal with the subject but for the Under-Secretary of State to reply to it?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I know that references have been made to the matter, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confine himself to the main Question.

Mr. Stokes: I propose to confine myself to the point, which no doubt will come from Downing Street in due course, that the new Air Transport Command is intended to control all forms of air transport in relation to the war. Therefore I call it the Air War Transport Command. The matter I am interested in discussing with the Secretary of State for Air is what


exactly this set-up is to be, when it comes under my right hon. Friend's Department. It has nothing whatever to do with the Minister without Portfolio, who is concerned with civil aviation after the war, but is entirely a matter of control of transport aircraft during the war. British Airways Corporation was taken over by the Government, who did what they have done so often. The Government took over bag and baggage the whole personnel. They bought out the vested interests and then left them in charge. That is exactly what has happened—if my newspaper clairvoyant is correct. It is not very satisfactory to those of us who have protested against this Government's practice of putting vested interests in charge. I know we have a similar example with the Minister of Production who controlled the tin monopoly in peacetime. The Government did just the same thing in regard to that, which was put under the control of my right hon. Friend when he went as subordinate to the Ministry of Supply. The Government have already announced even what is to happen with the tin monopoly in Malaya and Singapore, when the Japanese are kicked out and the international control was virtually in the hands of the Ministry of Production. The point is, that the tendency of the Government is to put a veneer of political control on the top and then leave all the vested interests or their representatives in charge.

Sir A. Sinclair: My hon. Friend is discussing the position of British Overseas Corporation in relation to the new Transport Command. You, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, interrupted him and said that that subject would be out of Order in this Debate, whereupon my hon. Friend argued that his remarks were devoted entirely to the Air Transport Command which was to take over the whole responsibility for air transport during the war. I must say, with great respect—although my hon. Friend's argument had great force—that he is now stating that the Government are handing these matters over to vested interests, which is contrary to the argument which he put to you.

Mr. Stokes: My right hon. Friend is a much more able debater than I am, but I am able to show him, if he pursues this erroneous path, that vested interests are in control. We have a right to know, and

the House of Commons ought to be told, what is behind all this organisation. There is no mistaking it. We know that vested interests are all mixed up with British Airways, Ltd. who are now absorbed into the British Overseas Corporation. But we find they have the same chairman and the same general manager in charge of affairs as were in charge of British Airways, Ltd. I would like the House to know about this new operational control. If the House thinks it a right and proper thing, then, as is often the case, I shall be in a minority again.

Sir A. Sinclair: I submit that if my hon. Friend wishes to discuss British Overseas Airways, it ought to be done on the Amendment.

Mr. Bellenger: It is not for the right hon. Gentleman to say that.

Sir A. Sinclair: The Chair has ruled that. If the discussion is upon air transport, I suggest that my hon. Friend must stand by the declaration which he made himself on the Floor of this House and in the hearing of hon. Members all round the House. It is Air Transport Command, and not vested interests, which is to control the air routes.

Mr. Stokes: Certainly I am in agreement with him, for entirely different reasons, but if he is not now prepared to stand up and say who is to command the new Command, how can I discuss the organisation under the new Command unless I assume my newspaper clairvoyant is right?
If you are going to set up an operational control, the House is entitled to know what it is to be before it is faced with a fait accompli. This House has had very nearly enough of Ministers of the Crown coming to that Box and saying, "You can take it or leave it." We had the same sort of intimation from the Leader of the House to-day. When some of us were challenging him about meetings in the Treasury on post-war currency by the United Nations he practically said that the Government would take their decision and stand or fall by it, having committed the country. That is what my right hon. Friend wants to do, and it is exactly what I am trying to stop him from doing. I leave the House to judge whether I should be allowed to go on. I do not think it is satisfactory to get this extraordinary hand-


over made into a military Command and to leave the same personnel in charge.
I want to deal with one personal matter, because wrong things have been said. It is known that the Under-Secretary was at one time associated with British Airways, Ltd. I understand, and accept it, that he never had any interest or benefit in the matter at all; he was a technical director. But he was a director, and 9,000 shares were standing in his name. He says that he had no beneficial participation, and I must believe him, but so much has been said in the country that it is as well that that should be said in the House. Nevertheless, the fact that he held shares lends colour to the very deep suspicion that all is not right with the Government's handling of the situation. I conclude by asking for an absolute, categorical and specific assurance that the Government will not hand over any monopoly control of aviation at all to any civil corporation or group, and will not enter into any binding arrangement with people outside this country, without first coming to this House.

Captain Peter Macdonald: I rise to make a short intervention in the Debate, because I know there are many other speakers and that there is an Amendment to discuss. I wish to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his very comprehensive statement. It does not detract one iota from the story or the importance of it that he had recourse to his notes and stuck to them very closely. I was very pleased to hear him make reference to two branches of the Royal Air Force which up to now have had very little publicity for the magnificent work they have been doing since the beginning of the war. I refer to the Maintenance Command of the Royal Air Force and the Air-Sea Rescue Service. I had some experience of both these branches of the Service when I was with Fighter Command squadrons, and I can assure him that they have done a magnificent job of work, and this is the first time I have heard reference made to them in this House.
I do not intend to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) in his very heated discussion about the future of Air Transport Command, but I myself have one or two questions to ask about the future functions of that Command, because the right hon. Gentleman

made reference to this new Command and did not give us any important particulars. I want to know what the functions of this Command are to be. Are they, for instance, to take over some of the functions now being carried out by Army Co-operation Command, particularly as regards airborne troops? Are they to transport airborne troops? That is of vital importance in their relationship to the war in the future, and that should be made clear. If we knew now that that was to be one of their functions, I should have a good deal to say about it. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman could tell me now whether they will be responsible for the towing and conveying of airborne troops.

Sir A. Sinclair: No, Army Co-operation Command will be continued.

Captain Macdonald: I shall have a word to say about that. What are to be the functions of this new Command which is being set up? I am always very suspicious of new Commands which are set up on the day on which the Estimates are being introduced in this House. It looks to me very suspiciously as though the Government are just taking this opportunity of shelving what has become a rather difficult question, this question of air transport in the future. I hope that is not to be the case. Therefore, I hope we are to hear more from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who is to reply what the functions of the Command are to be and who is to command it. Is it to be just another opportunity of making a job for a bowler-hatted air marshal in order to shelve this question, as when the Army Co-operation Command was set up? Instead of finding a new, vigorous, young man who understood the problem and putting him in charge of that Command, they unfortunately dug up an old air marshal who had already been given the bowler hat. The result we have seen since. I have had opportunities of seeing some of the work of that Command, and I have heard a good deal of the mistakes that have been made.
A year ago, when the Estimates were introduced, complaints were made in this House about the lack of co-operation between Army Co-operation Command and other branches of the Service. At that time, I asked the right hon. Gentleman to ask the officer responsible to give an


account of his stewardship, and that if he was not satisfied to clear him out and get someone else in his place. That has not been done. I have no personal feelings against the officer, but I maintain that the Commands to-day should be in charge of young men who understand the problem, not Only the Air Force side of it, but that of other branches of the Services. It is not good enough to put a man in charge of a new job because you want to shelve it. I hope the man who is to be in charge of this new Command will be a young man who is going to give the Air Council a lot of trouble until he gets what he wants in aircraft and equipment, or it will be utterly useless, and the right hon. Gentleman will have lots of trouble in this House answering questions about the Command's functions and stewardship.
I cannot discuss this in very great detail, because I know so little about what those functions are. Is the Command to be confined entirely to the war, or is it to be carried on from war activity to civil transport functions? If I knew that, I might be able to say a good deal more about it, and to ask more questions. Even if it is confined to war activities, it is absolutely vital to put somebody in command of that new Command who not only understands the military aspect but also understands something of the civil side of aviation and civil air routes, because obviously the two functions must be carried on and if civil aviation is not to be neglected or air transport in the future is not to be neglected, you must lay your plans now. You must pay some attention to research now, to design now, not after the war. Therefore, it is important you should get the right officer in command and the right staff collected now, not after the war. I hope that when the Amendment is moved we shall hear something more about this aspect of the question. In fear of being ruled out of Order I am going to leave that matter there for the present.
I shall make one reference to a speech made by the hon. Member for the Walton Division (Mr. Purbrick), who referred to dive-bombers. This is an old story that has been causing a good deal of controversy in this House since I came back to it. I thought it had pretty well died out. I know some hon. Members on these benches were very vociferous some

months ago on this subject. One does not hear anything from them now and I assumed that they had been convinced that whatever might have been said for dive-bombers two or three years ago—and a good deal could have been said for them at that time—there is no earthly use harking back to them to-day. I have had some experience of these dive-bombers. In France I was in charge of convoys on roads and was dive-bombed, and it was not pleasant. It was decidedly unpleasant, and it always is. If you are part of a fixed target and there is no fighter protection or flak, it is very unpleasant being dive-bombed, but if I had to choose between the cannon gun fighter of to-day and any number of Stukas you would care to bring along, I should choose cannon gun fighters every time. That is the view of most people who are well informed on this subject and have had experience of both types of machine.
There was a test of the two in the Middle East not long ago. One South African squadron which was never in action previously met about 50 or 60 Stukas coming into action and shot down about 33 of them in one afternoon. That was the answer to the Stuka, and the last we saw of it on that particular part of the front. They are very effective if they have superior air cover, or if there is no strong opposition or no opposition at all in the way of fighter or ack-ack defences, I hope this controversy is not going to be stirred up again in this House. It detracts from other things; it confuses and disturbs the minds of people in this country who do not understand the position and are given the impression that our troops, their menfolk in the Army, are not being properly defended. I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who is to reply will clear up these points. Experts to-day who are in a position to know are convinced, I think rightly, that the dive-bomber of two or three years ago is out of date. I hope that the British Government will not resort, to that or even a superior dive-bomber to-day in preference to the cannon gun fighter or even the eight machine gun fighter, which has proved itself capable of doing the work of the dive-bomber and defending itself at the same time.
I am not going to follow other arguments which have been put forward in this Debate, as it would take a long time and my hon. Friend the Mem-


ber for Rugby (Mr. W. Brown) tells me that he is anxious to speak, and I know that he has important points to raise. But I hope that this question of the new Command will be cleared up, and that this House will know what the function of that Command is to be and who is to command. I hope we shall be told that it is not to be some bowler-hatted Air Marshal who will not give the Air Council any trouble, but some young officer who knows both the civil and military aspects of this problem and who will give the Air Council all the trouble he can, until he gets what is wanted in the way of aircraft and equipment.

Mr. William Brown: I have no complaints to make about the way the Minister delivered his speech to-day, because I think what is said is much more important than how it is said. I want to direct my remarks to-day solely to the examination of one point—the waste of man-power and of public money within the Air Ministry. The Minister has told us that the Maintenance Staff of the Royal Air Force has done, and is doing, a tremendous job of work. He referred to the scores of thousands of Air Force personnel, W.A.A.F., and civilians engaged in this very important section of the Air Ministry. It is true that there are scores of thousands of men and women employed in this section. I begin with the assertion that there are thousands more than there ought to be. That represents a waste of man-power which should not be tolerated at this stage of the war. I made this point on the Army Estimates, and I make it to-day on the Air Force Estimates. I assert that there is a calamitous waste of uniformed personnel, above all in the Maintenance Division of the Royal Air Force.
I will give a simple illustration. For obvious reasons, I cannot give the name of the Unit, but Members can have it privately if they wish. The pre-war complement of this Unit was—1 group-captain, 1 wing-commander, 4 flight-lieutenants, and 4 pilot-officers: a total of eight uniformed personnel, all told. To-day the establishment of that unit—and I quote it only because it is typical of all the other units—is 1 group-captain, 4 wing-commanders, 7 squadron-leaders, 22 flight-lieutenants, and 32 pilot-officers and flying-officers. I do not object to a quantitative increase, as there is bound

to have been an enormous increase in the work of the Royal Air Force. My point is that all this maintenance work could be done to-day by a civilian staff. It is, for the most part, not work which requires the services of pilot-officers, flight-lieutenants, squadron-leaders, and so on. It is a store-keeping and issuing job, rather than a flying or navigating job. We are wasting the services of thousands of officers, upon whose training a great deal of money has been spent, by putting them to work which could be done by civilian personnel.

Sir Alfred Beit: The hon. Member obviously does not understand that these officers are members of the Equipment Branch, who do not fly and never have flown.

Mr. Brown: That is beside the point. I say that we should not waste uniformed man-power on jobs which could be done by civilians. That holds good whether these men would in other circumstances be flying or not. Secondly, it is a heavy waste of money. The emoluments of a flight-lieutenant, taking pay and allowances together, will amount to rather more than £50 a month. Of that, £20 represents allowances not subject to Income Tax. The emoluments of the civilian, who is doing precisely the same sort of work, where he is allowed to, amount to somewhat less than £20 a month. For every flight-lieutenant used on this work, which could be done by a civilian, there is a net loss to the Exchequer of £30 a month. If that is multiplied by thousands of units, the net loss to the Exchequer in the course of the year becomes very large.
Here is my third point. The Air Minister, I am sure, will acknowledge, because I know him to be a just-minded man, that he owes much to the civilian staff of the Air Ministry, both at headquarters and outside. I must tell him, with a bluntness which I am sure he will forgive, because it is natural to me, that there is deep discontent among the civilian staff, above all in the Maintenance Division. There were some hundreds of civilian clerks employed in the Air Ministry before the war. They were trained in the expectation that when war came, if it unhappily should come, their services would be utilised to the full, and that an avenue would be provided for them to do better-paid work. That expectation was not unnatural; indeed, an expectation to a share in the spoils of war


is not confined to the Civil Service: it shows itself on the Front Benches on both sides of the House. But the fact is that the civilian staffs are confined to precisely the same work as they were doing before the war. Their claims for upgrading have been rejected, solely because of this habit of employing uniformed personnel on work which could be done just as efficiently, and far more economically, by civilians. This is a small point, but an accumulation of small points of this kind makes a very important total.
I hold the view that when the Russians and the Americans came into the war there ought to have been, from the centre, a revision of the whole man-power policy of this country. Then the point about which my hon. Friend complained, the taking up of draughtsmen and so on unnecessarily, would not have arisen. But if we are to go on with a man-power policy very much similar to that which we had before the United States and Russia came in, I beg the Minister not to waste man-power on the scale that he is doing. The Minister of Labour is combing out industry with a tooth brush. [AN HON. MEMBER: "A fine-tooth comb."] No, the uses of a fine-tooth comb are well-known, and I deliberately used the less offensive term "tooth brush." He is picking up every unconsidered trifle in the way of man-power that he can find. But there is more waste of man-power in the Civil Service, the Army, the Air Force, and, to a less degree, the Admiralty, than in any industry to-day. The Minister of Labour will find, without difficulty, far more men whose labour is being wasted in these Services, than he would get by combing out the last man he can lay his hands on in industry.
I ask the Air Minister whether he can give us an assurance that he will take seriously these representations, and if necessary consult the associations in the Air Ministry, the members of which will give him far more detail than I have been able to give in this short speech. If he is satisfied that what I have said is true, I ask him to take the necessary steps to put this work in the hands of the civilian staff. That will give him more men for the Air Force, and save public money.

Mr. Boothby: I will not follow my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr.

W. Brown) on a subject about which he is an acknowledged expert, but I hope the Minister will consult with the appropriate organisations in the Air Ministry, because I think there is still a good deal too much waste of man-power in the Services as a whole. I share the regret which has been expressed that my right hon. Friend found it necessary to read his statement. Those of us who have sat here for years with him know that he is not only a great debater but a great orator. He had a fascinating story to tell. If he had allowed himself to tell it rather more in the style which we have heard him use in the past, it would have been better. While due regard must be paid to security, I hope that it will not become the practice of all Ministers to read their statements, because that does take away from the effect that their speeches otherwise might have.
Before I come to my main point, I would like to mention one or two comparatively small points. First, I would express satisfaction at the fact that the Air Ministry have decided to pay the full rate of pay to all officers holding acting rank. This was for two years, at any rate, a standing and considerable grievance in the Air Force, and my right hon. Friend is to be congratulated in having done away with it. Then I should like to express great satisfaction over the categorical assurance which my right hon. Friend gave in reply to a Question I put the other day, that sergeants who are taken off flying duties because of physical disability, and for no fault of their own, will not, in any circumstances, be reduced in rank. That is a matter about which I think the House has felt keenly.
There is one other routine point of administration to which I would like to refer. I do not know whether the House realises it, but at present when officers who are members of flying crews are required to live in mess for operational purposes their allowances, if they had been living out with their families, are substantially docked for the period during which they live in mess. I do not believe that this would be, in any circumstances, the wish of this House. These officers are operating under unprecedented conditions. They are attacking the enemy from bases in a peaceful countryside. That imposes a great psychological strain. It seems to me that when an officer has taken a cottage for his wife and family


and is required to live in mess in order to conduct operations against Germany, it is scandalous that his allowances should be docked. I make the most urgent appeal to my right hon. Friend to put that right. It is a great grievance, as I know, because I still keep in touch with the bomber stations as much as I can. I am sure that if this question were to be put squarely before the House, Members would say that it is not right that officers who are required to live in mess for the purpose of carrying out operations against the enemy, should be docked of any part of their allowances.
There is only one other point I wish to make on the question of personnel. The promotion of youth in the Royal Air Force has, by common consent, been justified to the full. It is most remarkable how these young men between the ages of 24 and 30 are discharging most immense responsibilities easily and competently. The right hon. Gentleman is to be most warmly congratulated on the policy that the Royal Air Force has always pursued of promoting young men to positions of the highest responsibility.

Captain Macdonald: Not so high.

Mr. Boothby: There are group-captains in active command, and many wing-commanders commanding squadrons, who are under 30.

Captain Macdonald: I refer to the higher positions.

Mr. Boothby: Nevertheless I think that both the other Services would do well to emulate the example of the Royal Air Force in this respect, because on the whole they have done very well.
In any general consideration of air policy two things have to be borne in mind, first, that air power has now been proved to be absolutely essential to the successful conduct of modern war in any field; and secondly, that air power is indivisible. The main object of the Royal Air Force is first, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, to achieve air power; and then to bring the whole weight of it to bear at the vital point. Therefore, as against the other two Services, the Royal Air Force has two functions to discharge and two battles to fight. It has, first, to achieve air mastery, and then to bring that mastery to bear on the enemy. The greatest asset of air power is its flexibility.

One of the most famous of contemporary military leaders said the other day that the concentrated use of the air striking force is a battle-winning factor of the first importance. It follows, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, that the operational control of the Air Force must be centralised, otherwise you are bound to get that most fatal of all things—a dispersal of effort.
The question of co-operation between the various Services has been raised in this Debate, and it is a subject in which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Captain Taylor) is particularly interested. There have been complaints of lack of co-operation in the past, and on the whole they have been justified. But as far as co-operation between the Air Force and the Navy is concerned it is fair to point out that not only Coastal but both Bomber and Fighter Commands are carrying out continuous sorties on behalf of the Admiralty, and have been for some time past.
I hope that, as the Lancasters come off the lines in increasing numbers, Stirlings will be diverted in a greater degree to operations against U-boats, for which they can be easily adapted. But it takes two to co-operate. In the last war the Admiralty, until the advent of Wemyss and Keyes, were very "defence-minded." I wonder if that is still the case. The services the Navy has rendered in protecting the merchant Service cannot be overestimated. But if you read the history of the last war their outlook was defensive rather than offensive. I suspect that if we could read the minutes of the three Services before this war upon the general question of air power, we might find in them an explanation of the comparative deficiency of the Fleet Air Arm at the present time. The fact remains that before the war the other two Services—and the Navy particularly—could not bring themselves to believe that air power would play as important a part as it has played and is now playing.
So far as the Army is concerned we have now a classic example of effective co-operation, based on sound doctrine, between the Royal Air Force and an army in the field. It is to be found in the history of the operations of the Eighth Army in North Africa during the past few months. How has this co-operation been achieved? As the right hon. Gentleman


pointed out, the operation as a whole is under the general direction of the Army commander. He issues the directive. But he has an Air Headquarters staff, living with him, which controls the operations of the Air Force and exercises direct command over such squadrons as may be allocated for the purpose of supporting the army. Through this Air Headquarters the Army commander can obtain a concentration of the whole of his air resources at a given moment at the decisive point. He can do it in no other way. He certainly could never hope to do it if the Air Force command were split up into divisions and sub-divisions on each sector of the front, and a brigade, division or corps given its own separate quota of air support.
Equally, the Air Officer Commanding can obtain from the Commander-in-Chief the necessary force and the facilities to achieve the capture or construction of aerodromes in the forward zone. General Montgomery, Commander of the Eighth Army, summarising this question of Air Force and Army co-operation, said recently that all that is required is that the two Services should work together at the same headquarters in complete harmony, and with complete mutual understanding and confidence. It can be done, because it has been done; and the result is a welding in action of the Army and Air Force into a single comprehensive unit of attack and defence. What this House wants to know from the right hon. Gentleman is whether the precept and practice so successfully adopted in North Africa is to be taken as a model for the future, and applied over the whole field of combined offensive action. I think we can take it from what the right hon. Gentleman said that the training, especially the combined training of the Army and Air Force, now going on in this country is based upon the example and model set by the Eighth Army in the North African campaign, which form a guide for their activities. Meanwhile, it might be a good thing if some of the retired Admirals, Generals and Air Marshals, who have little or no practical experience of the present war, were to-stop banging away at each other in another place. I do not think their almost interminable weekly discussions bear much relation to reality; and in so far as they do anything at all, I think they do a certain amount of harm from the psychological point of view.
One word before I sit down about Bomber Command. The right hon. Gentleman referred to it at some length in his speech. We decided to concentrate upon the production of bombers in the winter of 1940–41. It was the only thing we could do at that time, when we were quite alone fighting the Germans. I do not think that anybody can quarrel with that decision. But let us face it. The results achieved in 1942 were disappointing. We in this House might reasonably have expected that we would have built up a bomber force of great magnitude and striking power; and that expectation was not realised in 1942.

Mr. Reakes: Why?

Mr. Boothby: Because we got very few bombers from the United States that we could use, at any rate in this country. There were also serious diversions to Coastal Command and to the Middle East; and we must admit that our own production of heavy bombers was disappointing. Actually Bomber Command at the end of last year had less than 10 per cent. increase in the number of aircraft at its disposal. I am not now talking of weight; but the numerical increase in aircraft of Bomber Command in 1942 was comparatively negligible, and that is disappointing, to say the least of it. What was the result? For the great thousand-bomber raids of last summer we were compelled to draw on the training organisation to a considerable extent.

Mr. Stokes: There were only two of them.

Mr. Boothby: I think there were three. It is undesirable in itself to use half-trained crews for operations, and it may be expensive. But the fact nevertheless remains that the results of the first—the Cologne—raid on the night of 30th-3ist May last year were absolutely staggering. We dropped 1,500 tons of bombs in 90 minutes, as against fewer than 200 tons of bombs dropped on Coventry. During those 90 minutes it can be said that the third greatest city in the Reich was, for all practical purposes, knocked out. It took several months to get back any semblance of order into that city, or to get the factories going again.
On the other hand, our raids on the German industrial centres of the Ruhr and Rhineland with forces of moderate size


became increasingly expensive, and achieved no outstanding success. It became evident during 1942 that against large and heavily defended targets a force of say 250 aircraft is insufficient to saturate the defences and to produce sufficient devastation; and that the casualties were out of proportion. The lesson, as far as Bomber Command is concerned, to be learned is that, once again, the secret of air power is concentration at the vital point. The aircraft must have the necessary height, range, speed and bomb capacity; and must, above all, be sufficiently numerous to saturate both the air and ground defences. Without this, disproportionate casualties are bound to occur, because it is a fact that a bomber force can be outnumbered on the ground by the defences. Casualties do not increase in proportion to the number of aircraft put over a particular target at a given time. On the contrary, they decrease as the number of aircraft concentrated on a particular target is increased. Therefore we have to recognise the fact that concentration in time and space is the answer to Bomber Command policy, as it is to all Air Force policy. It is no easy task to get a force of sufficient size at a given moment over a point several hundred miles away from this country in the dark, and then to bomb the target accurately from a height of perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 feet, often enough in the teeth of an intense anti-aircraft barrage. But the new technique—what is called the pathfinder technique—which was developed in 1942, has proved conclusively that it can-be done.
The only conclusion that the House can reach is that we must go on with our bombing policy now that we have turned our hands towards it. Bomber Command is not a second front. I do not think that even the Lord Chancellor would claim that it was. It is not even, as someone has pointed out, a prelude or the necessary prelude to invasion. It is quite separate from the invasion of the Continent. But, at present, Bomber Command pins down 750,000 uniformed troops in Germany on anti-aircraft guns and searchlights, and another 750,000 A.R.P., Red Cross workers, and other workers in civil defence. Thus 1,500,000 individuals in Germany are at the present moment pinned down for the sole purpose of combating the attacks of Bomber Command. I ask the House to consider for

one moment the disparity between these figures and the figures of the German forces that are at present being engaged in North Africa. The only answer you can give is that Bomber Command is certainly fulfilling at the present moment a very useful purpose. And the Royal Air Force as a whole "contains" over 50 per cent. of the Luftwaffe. Think of what that does for the Russians.
I often think that when we talk to the Russians, who are, justifiably, apprehensive about what we are doing, and about the opening of a second front, we should do well to concentrate less upon the amount of stuff sent in convoys to them, although it has been substantial, and concentrate far more on the immense weight that the Royal Air Force, and particularly Bomber Command, is taking off the Eastern front at the present time. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, we are also swinging over German production from bombers to fighters, in order to combat the attacks of our Bomber Command. Therefore, the general results are cumulative. What is claimed, and rightly claimed, for Bomber Command, is that, given the necessary number of aircraft, it can be one of the decisive factors in the war this year. That, I think, is not an exaggerated claim to make. It can be one of the decisive factors. And, having put our hand to this job nearly three years ago, it would be absolute madness not to go through with it to the end.
I appreciate what was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) and I appreciate his hatred, in some ways, of the whole business. That can be understood, although I was interested to see that his dislike of our bombing policy stopped short of the bombing of armament factories, of which he seemed rather to approve. But I feel that, in view of the results already obtained with a force of a size which everybody will agree is inadequate for the task which has to be done, the achievements of Bomber Command have been most remarkable. Therefore, let us give our bomber crews the bombers—and, above all, the "Lancasters"—that they want and deserve. But do not let us treat them as mere machines. The only criticism I have heard levelled against Bomber Command is not against its efficiency, but against a certain touch of inhumanity. After all, our bomber crews are human


beings; and it is an arresting thought that when we carry out one of our big raids over a German town there may be anything from 3,500 to 4,500 young Englishmen in the air, about three miles above the target. When we staged our big raid on Cologne, no fewer than 7,000 young men were in the air over that town together at a given moment. These bomber crews display a quality of cold courage which has never been matched and which is quite unparalleled in the annals of war; and nothing we can do for them should be left undone.

Mr. Stokes: May I put a question to the hon. Gentleman since he has seen fit to mention my name? Is he aware that my constant objection has been to what I call indiscriminate night bombing—and bombing must be indiscriminate at night—and that I have never objected to bombing of strictly military targets by day?

Mr. Boothby: My answer to that is that we have now reached a point where bombing at night is no longer indiscriminate.

Mr. Stokes: But it is.

Mr. Roland Robinson: My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) made, as usual, a most interesting speech, and I agreed with him when he said that in the Royal Air Force youth does have its chance. I have been living with the Air Force now for three years, and I know it is the admiration of visitors and Allies from overseas that we have so many young men in high positions. Indeed, I am only 36, but for a long time now I have been saying "Sir" to wing-commanders 13 years younger than myself and to captains six or seven years younger. That is a very good thing. In the R.A.F. we have a unique combination of youth and experience. There was another point raised by my hon. Friend which interested me. He seemed a little disappointed in the numerical increase of our bomber force in this country. Assuming that his figure of 10 per cent. is accurate, it seems good to me. We have sent vast numbers of aircraft overseas, and, above all, during the past year there has been a tremendous change-over in the type of aircraft we are flying. The old Wellingtons, Whitleys and Hampdens are being replaced by newer and more powerful planes which carry big bomb loads—Stirlings, Hali-

faxes and, above all, Lancasters. A truer and fairer analysis will show that with by far a fewer number of aircraft we can drop a greater tonnage of bombs on Germany.
However, my real provocation for making a speech in the House to-day came from the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague), who seemed to question our bombing policy and, referring to raids on Nuremberg and Munich, asked, "Are we not indulging in wanton destruction?" It seems to me that anyone who raises such a question now has not given fair consideration or study to the matter. Bomber Command attacks specifically chosen targets. One has only to look at the way in which they are announced in the Press. We have been smashing Brest, Lorient, and St. Nazaire, the big bases for enemy submarines which attack our shipping; we have been to Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, and Hamburg to smash their docks, shipbuilding yards and factories; we have been to Berlin, the capital of Germany, which is a big industrial centre; and we have been to Nuremburg and Munich, where they build engines that send their aircraft into the air and to equip their tanks. Surely that is evidence of real planning in attack. The hon. Gentleman leaves out of consideration the constant attacks made every day by our Mosquitoes flying low to go for selected factories in Denmark, Holland, Germany and France. Our bombing policy throughout has never been based on revenge but on competent planning which studies the essential things we need to win the war in the shortest possible time.
There has been a good deal of reference to the formation of the new Transport Command, and there has been a little criticism that it has come too late. I cannot agree. First things come first. We had our backs to the wall after Dunkirk, and when there came the Battle of Britain and we wanted fighters we got them. Then we moved to the offensive, for which we must have bombers. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air had been busy in the past providing all these transport aircraft then, we could not have had the fighters at the time of the Battle of Britain and the bombers now. Now my right hon. Friend is filling in the gap and equipping himself more thoroughly for the waging of the offensive against the enemy. Transport Command is part of


the normal routine in war. One has only to look at the large numbers of troops which the Germans have moved into Tunisia by air.

Captain Peter Macdonald: We were told by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Air that the carrying of airborne troops was not one of the new Command's functions.

Sir A. Sinclair: I did not say it was not their function. If the hon. and gallant Member means the transport of troops by air, that is certainly part of their work.

Mr. Robinson: Air transport being essential, let us welcome it as being one of the last things to complete the picture of a fully developed Royal Air Force. It would be a good thing, for us, too, from the point of view of civil aviation, but do not let it go out to the world that we are forming an Air Transport Command solely so that we can compete in the field of civil aviation after the war. I do not want to see fierce competition; there is room in the world for us all, for our American and other Allies, in the air. Let us get away from the suggestions made here and on the other side of the Atlantic that we are doing it in order to plan for keen competition in the air when the war is over. Let the message go out from this House to the Americans that after the war they will be as welcome here in peace as they have been and are in war. I feel confident that we, too, will be welcome on the other side. The hon. Gentleman the Member for West Islington also urged that there should be no jealousies among the United Nations. I have served at air stations with British, Dominion, Polish, Czechoslovakian, French, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, and American pilots, and I can say that among the boys who are fighting there are no jealousies. We do not mink of these things. If we see our colleagues in the air, we do not stop to say, "There are the French." Our only thought is that there are our boys. I believe that by fostering that spirit the Royal Air Force has done a grand piece of work.
We are working now in particular in co-operation with our American friends. It has been my privilege to serve at American headquarters for some nine months, and I have been thrilled at the wonderful spirit of co-operation which exists. It is absolutely 100 per cent. I have heard Americans say, "So far as the British

are concerned, we must do everything we can to meet their wishes and desires." On the other hand, the Royal Air Force has said of our Allies, "We must do everything we can to help them in their wishes." So we have this grand spirit of co-operation which will lead us to victory. We are not working in competition; rather are we complementary. So I think it might have been stressed that while we are making these steady, heavy attacks night after night on Germany, we are looking forward to the time when the Americans, with their day bombing, will be able to put up as strong an effort as we do by night so that we can plaster the Hun for 24 hours a day, keep his defences going and make them so tired that they cannot stand up. I believe that an air offensive of that kind will soften the enemy so much that it will be easier for our ground forces to go forward to ultimate victory. The spirit of co-operation which has grown up between the British, American and Continental Allies will live, and because of that we can look forward to a better peace afterwards.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): There have been put to you, Mr. Speaker, from various parts of the House to-day some complaints as to the alleged practice of Ministers reading their speeches. There is no chance at all of the Minister who has to wind up a Debate being guilty of such a crime as that, because his task is to pick up the bits and pieces which have been thrown around the Chamber during a Debate of four hours or so by Members on all sides. His endeavour must be to sift the question from the declamation, and his duty is then to try to reply to the question and usually to pass by the declamation. So my task to-day is to endeavour to satisfy hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have put various questions to me, and I would like to deal first of all with the speech made by the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague), who is not in his place at the moment but who, I am sure, will excuse me for dealing with what he said in his absence. The hon. Gentleman asked me, as did another hon. Member, the very important question whether there is any change in our bombing policy, and he asked for an assurance that we are not bombing the women and children of Germany wantonly. I can at once give him, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, that


assurance. Our objectives are, as they always have been, industry, transport, the war industry of our enemy. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) protested against the destruction of Nuremberg by bombing and said that he was not at all impressed by the answer that Hitler would himself have destroyed Nuremberg. I wonder whether the hon. Member would not be impressed by the answer of the sight of Coventry, Bristol, Plymouth and Southampton: of what the Germans have done to this country. If in our pursuit of our objective the German civilian population has to suffer, it is not our fault. It is not for us to turn back because of that. The remedy lies in the hands of the German people themselves.

Mr. Stokes: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for a moment consider that two wrongs make a right, and having said what he has said about the concentration of our bombers on war targets, how does he reconcile his statement with the statement of the Secretary of State for Air that we have obliterated 160 acres of built-up area—working-class dwellings—around Essen in our attempts to hit Krupp's works?

Captain Balfour: The Secretary of State was telling the House the facts of the results of our bombing, the purpose of which is to break down Germany's war effort. I repeat that if those innocent people, women and children, suffer in the execution of our policy on Germany, the remedy lies with the German men and women themselves. Of course, war is cruel and destructive, and the destruction of property and cities is inevitable, but again, I give the assurance that there is no change in our policy, that our purpose is to destroy Germany's industry, transport and war industry and war potential, and that we are not wantonly bombing women and children for the sake of so doing.

Mr. Montague: May I say that I did not intend to suggest that we were? I thought it would be desirable at this time, in view of the statements that are being made, that this reaffirmation should be made.

Captain Balfour: I am very glad the hon. Member gave us the opportunity of reaffirming that point. The hon. Member for West Islington also asked whether there was a quarrel between the Services.

The whole theme running through my right hon. Friend's speech was that we wished to have co-operation and we have achieved a great degree of co-operation, and intend to go on until we are absolutely satisfied that the closest co-operation from top to bottom exists between all three Services. The hon. Member then asked whether we are up to date in our ideas as regards using modern aircraft, and he mentioned particularly the helicopter for marine work. He will not expect me to go into any details, except to say this: "Yes, Sir," and we are acquiring a number of helicopters for marine protection duties. The next question my hon. Friend asked was whether we are getting our share of dive-bombers. The hon. Member for Ipswich also asked whether we are getting our right share of transport aircraft. My answer is, "Yes, Sir." We have a Combined Munitions Assignment Board set up between America and ourselves upon which both countries are represented, and the combined resources of both countries are distributed according to the strategical needs of the different theatres of war and given to each partner to use.

Mr. A. Bevan: Will, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us on what occasion dive-bombers have been used by us in a European theatre of war recently?

Captain Balfour: I am giving an account of the machinery which exists for the distribution of the assets of the United Nations.

Mr. Bevan: We discussed this matter in the House last June and July, particularly in a Debate on a Motion of Censure, and we laid special stress upon the use of dive-bombers and transport planes. Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us, as he says that allocations of dive-bombers are being made and in view of the fact that dive-bombers have been used against us in North Africa with great effect, on what occasion we have used dive-bombers in European theatres of war?

Captain Balfour: No, Sir, we have not yet used dive-bombers in European theatres of war, but the hon. Member, who is such a prophet of strategy and the use of weapons in months to come, must appreciate the fact that those responsible for the direction of the war are not pre-


judiced against the use of dive-bombers. The only thing they wish to do is to use to the best of our ability such resources as we do possess. The hon. Member for Ipswich then said that, of course, the formation of the Transport Command was really rather late. But the reason it is only now being formed is that we are getting satisfaction in respect of the very point about which he was doubtful; we are getting satisfaction in the receipt of transport aircraft for the first time. I submit that the hon. Member cannot have it both ways; he cannot say, on the one hand, that the formation of the Transport Command is too late, and on the other hand, throw doubts on the receipt of transport aircraft when the very receipt of them is enabling us to form the Transport Command.

Mr. Stokes: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will take the trouble—I do not suppose he will—to read my speech tomorrow, he will find that I did not say anything of the sort. I did not say it was too late. I said that the delivery of transport planes was too late. I do not want to know whether there is a machine for supplying air transporters. A sausage machine that turns out no sausages is of no use. Are we getting the full requirements of air transporters to meet our immediate needs now, and not next Christmas?

Captain Balfour: Nobody has yet had his full requirements in this war. We are now getting our allocation of transport aircraft through the Board. One does not have hundreds of air transports now, this moment. What one has is a plan of deliveries—10, 20, 30, 40, or whatever it may be, a month. We have an agreed programme, which is being kept to at the present time.
The hon. Member for West Islington then referred to the more domestic point as to the alleged bad conditions in the W.A.A.F. camps, and he asked whether we would look into that matter. The figures of complaints received in the Air Ministry to-day from all quarters, in spite of the growth of the W.A.A.F., are about the same as the numbers of complaints received last year. It is interesting to note that the receipt of complaints is very largely seasonal and that one always gets a greater number during the three bad months of the year. I do not pretend for

one moment that conditions are satisfactory at every camp. Of course, they are not. What I will say is that the scale of baths, the scale of sanitary appliances, is a satisfactory one. Here and there we cannot satisfy that scale entirely, for one or other of two reasons: either because there are shortages of material or a shortage of contractors' labour which does not enable the camp to be finished, or because on occasions we deliberately ask and expect the W.A.A.F. to go into a camp before the accommodation is really finished if the operational part of the camp is finished and we need the aerodrome for operational purposes. I think the hon. Member will find that the majority of the complaints are passing ones and that once the camp has got into its stride, they disappear. However, we try most meticulously to go into all complaints that are sent to us either by hon. and right hon. Members or from other quarters. We have the welfare of those girls very much at heart and I should be only too glad to go into any cases which the hon. Member or any other hon. Members like to put before me.
I do not think I need answer the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. Purbrick), who is, if I may so call him without offence in his absence, the political expert on dive-bombing, because he comes to the House, as is indeed his right, asks a great many questions during the Session, and then asked me a great many questions in his speech to-day, but unfortunately finds himself unable to be present to hear the replies. So I do not think the House would expect me to dwell upon the hon. Member's speech.
I would like to deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich as regards the Transport Command. First, I can give him the assurance at once that there is no question of giving any concessions for civil aviation to anyone now or, as far as I can see, at any time during the war, because the whole of civil aviation is State-directed at the present time. Under Section 32 of the British Overseas Airways Act, the British Overseas Airways Corporation has had to put its undertaking entirely at the disposal of my right hon. Friend and he directs it as to what it is to do in aid of the war effort.

Mr. Stokes: That was not my point. I asked the Secretary of State whether he would give a categorical assurance that


no concession, implied or written, in air transport has been given by the Government anywhere within British territories to any foreign Power.

Captain Balfour: I will come to that matter. The hon. Member also asked the first question. He then asked whether, in respect of Pan-American and West Africa, which he particularly quoted, any particular concessions had been given. As I said from this Box in the Debate on the Estimates last year, as has been repeated since, and as was confirmed only recently by Mr. Wallace, the Vice-President of the United States, in a speech delivered a short time ago, there is no question of any post-war concession or post-war position existing because either partner in the war effort is travelling over the other's territories or has built bases on the other's territories.
He made the suggestion that there were skilled draughtsmen who could be got out of the Forces and used for the design of transport aircraft. That is a good idea. It had, however, already occurred to us, and we are acting upon it. He asked as to Transport Command's relationship to the British Airways Corporation and declaimed that vested interests must not be allowed to enter into the picture. There is no question of any vested interest, for the whole of the stock of the British overseas Airways Corporation, which operates at the direction of the Secretary of State, is held by the National Debt Commissioners.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain Macdonald) asked for details as to Transport Command's functions. My right hon. Friend has said that Transport Command would, in addition to controlling the operations of the Royal Air Force transport squadrons at home, be responsible for the organisation and control of strategic air routes; for overseas, ferrying, and the movement of squadron reinforcements to and from overseas theatres. I will enlarge, upon those particular functions. Air reinforcement, that is to say, provision for the moving of operational aircraft and their crews between commands; ferrying, which is the movement of aircraft, for example, from the United States to the United Kingdom, using in the main ferry pilots from a central pool; and, thirdly, international or inter-command communications, that

is to say, regular strategic services; and then air transport in the sense of the movement of stores, personnel, etc., from the base to the front line within an operational command. Those are the enlarged details of the functions which we intend Transport Command to carry out. Its activities will be for the war only, as far as we can see at present. What the shape of things to come will be at the end of the war none of us can tell. My hon. Friend said the commander-in-chief should be an officer who will have a particular interest in air transport. No announcement has yet been made, but in general we are in entire agreement with the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the air officer commanding should have a particular knowledge of and interest in air transport matters. The announcement will be made in due course.

Mr. Bellenger: The Secretary of State has told us that this Command is to be set up. The House is entitled to know when, and who is to be appointed.

Captain Balfour: My right hon. Friend told the House the decision of the Command at the earliest possible date, but as to when and who, those are essentially matters which the Air Council must decide in the light of the execution of its responsibilities devolved upon it by the House. In due course, as soon as we are in a position to make these decisions, they will be arrived at and announced.
The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. Brown) asked questions and made certain statements with regard to waste of manpower in the Air Ministry. We are as keen as he is to economise in man-power, and our Inspector-General has a special remit to look at all possible means of economising man-power when he goes round his various units. In particular the hon. Member quoted Maintenance Command and said there could be a great deal of substitution of uniformed persons by civilians, but I can tell him that about 50 per cent. of Maintenance Command is civilian at present. On the general question of uniform against civilian clothes, I side with him to a great extent, in that I do not like uniform for uniform's sake at all. My right hon. Friend has on at least two occasions deputed to me the task of carrying out certain investigations as to whether a particular branch containing civilians should be put into uniform, or possibly should be retained in uniform. I


have always approached the problem in the spirit that, if someone is a civil servant, I do not agree that he should be put into uniform and obtain Service rates of pay and Service non-effective benefits if he is doing during war-time the same work he was doing during peace-time and, broadly speaking, under the same conditions. That has been the general principle on which I made my recommendations to my right hon. Friend, and actually they have been accepted when I have made them. I shall be glad to look into any specific cases the hon. Member will send me as regards Maintenance Command.

Mr. W. Brown: There are three Ministries, the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, and the only one that has achieved a reasonably satisfactory solution of the problem is the Admiralty. Both the other Ministries have much to learn from the Admiralty.

Captain Balfour: If we have much to learn, all I can say is, "Let us learn it." I am very glad to receive any lesson.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) raised the question of the living-out allowances in relation to the living-in allowances. It is not quite as easy as he made out, because it is not a question of docking the allowances. These officers go from one scale of allowances to another. They go from living-out allowances rates to the consolidated allowances rates.

Mr. Boothby: From the higher to the lower.

Captain Balfour: Yes, but it is a little different from the naive way in which my hon. Friend said, "Of course, they have something docked," as if when they came to live in someone said, "That much off your allowance." What happens is that they go on to a different scale of allowances. I do not argue the point that they lose money on it, but it is a complicated question, raising the whole issue of the principle of allowances, not only for the Royal Air Force but for the Army and the Navy, and it can only be dealt with by agreement on an inter-Service basis with the Treasury. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not inactive on the matter. It is not an easy one nor a quick one—I make no promise there—but we are going into the question to see if we

can do anything. I was glad of the support my hon. Friend gave to the bombing policy, and I am sure all those concerned in the higher direction of the Air Force will read with profit and interest his remarks on the strategy of bombing, though they may not all agree with the variations on the theme which he introduced into his speech. Nevertheless, we are glad of his general support, as of that of other Members, for the work that the Royal Air Force carries out.
I know that in endeavouring to answer the questions which have been put, whether they have been put critically or otherwise, the House will accept these Estimates with the deep and earnest hope that the Royal Air Force may be allowed to carry on its work during the coming year with continued success and at the least possible cost to itself.

Orders of the Day — CIVIL AVIATION

Mr. Burke: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
this House, appreciating the important part which civil aviation will play in post-war reconstruction, urges the Government to adopt a policy which will ensure the immediate development of civil air transport at the conclusion of hostilities, so that, in co-operation with the countries of the. British Commonwealth and with other members of the United Nations, this means of communication shall be turned to peaceful ends and promote better international relationships as well as the economic welfare of all peoples.
I do not need to impress upon the House the importance of this subject of civil aviation. If one wanted to point out how important it is, we have only to consider what has happened in this Debate, when Member after Member has found himself dealing with the question. The subject is exercising the minds of the public to a very large extent. They are naturally concerned about what is happening throughout the world and about the position of the country in the future. Its ability to meet new conditions of air transport will, of course, be enormously increased, owing very largely to the technical advance which the war has brought about. People are mindful of the fact that we have now possibly millions of people engaged in the aircraft industry, directly or indirectly, and it is natural to ask what is going to happen after the war to the work that these people are now doing.


The matter has been brought up in another place quite recently, and it has been debated on the Adjournment in this House. Questions have been addressed to the Foreign Secretary asking what proposals the Government have, in conjunction with other countries, for dealing with the problem. The Minister without Portfolio and the Air Minister have been asked about it. There is general interest, and world-wide interest, in this problem, which is going to have a tremendous effect on the economic and social future of mankind in general. It will, of course, be a very potent factor in the question of war and peace in the future. It is a subject bristling with many difficulties, and statements have been made on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean which have perhaps not helped towards a solution. I should be sorry if I said anything which would make things more difficult.
I am a little concerned about the interest which is being taken in civil aviation by certain interests who have been approaching the Air Ministry and attempting to get guarantees that their position will be safeguarded in the future of air transport. I am referring to the great interest that the shipping companies are now taking in the question. Three shipping companies at least have asked the Minister to give them a guarantee that they will be able to function in this line when the war is over. They are fearful lest the increase in air transport will interfere with their own future prospects. That is the kind of thing which has happened over and over again when any new idea has come into being. The people who are responsible for the old feel that their interests will be prejudiced. Shipping companies are wrong in believing that. There will be plenty of room, if a right policy is pursued, for shipping companies to increase their trade in one particular line, though a certain amount of luxury traffic or package freights will be borne by air rather than by sea. Given an expansion of industry in this country, there will still be plenty of room for both land and sea traffic.
Whether the shipping companies are right or wrong in believing that air transport will prejudice their future, I hope the Government will see that the future of civil aviation is not tied up with the shipping or railway interests. It must be allowed perfect freedom in a new element.

There is a great danger that the shipping companies and other interests will attempt to stake out their claims in this new field. It is a field where we ought to start with new ideas. We ought to get away from the competitive notions of the 19th century and look upon civil aviation, not as a profit-making concern, but as something of service to our own people and to mankind as a whole. I hope that the Secretary of State will definitely say to these people that financial and vested interests will not be allowed to step in and run aviation in the interests of finance but that it will be run only in the interests of service. I would remind the Government that recently the Swedish Government, being approached similarly by shipping interests, have turned down their request to take part in air transport and have decided that there shall be one national Swedish scheme covering the whole of their external air lines. That is the line which the British Government ought to pursue. Indeed, it is the declared policy of the Government that for external lines there shall be one State-owned Corporation over which the Minister, by the 1939 Act, has a considerable amount of control. I sometimes wonder whether he exercises that control as fully as he should do. We realise that since the war began a considerable handicap was bound to be placed upon the workings of the Corporation. On the other hand, we must recognise that the Corporation started off on the wrong foot. Perhaps it is not right to say it started on the wrong foot, but that it started off with the wrong heads.
The State has paid an enormous amount of money to buy out two concerns, one of which, according to the Cadman Report, was bankrupt and the other highly inefficient, and the Government have put into the control of the new concern the representatives of the very financial interests that could not run the two concerns. There are people in charge of the British Overseas Airways Corporation who are there, not because of technical ability or particular business or commercial ability, but because they represent interests that began with Whitehall Securities. As a consequence, the outlook for civil aviation in this country is by no means a good one. The success of civil aviation in future depends, I believe, upon putting it under the control of men with vision, men whose ideal is service to the community, and, generally speaking, younger men with


technical ability. I agree with what the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) said a short time ago, when he congratulated the R.A.F. on its personnel being younger. That accounts for a good deal of its success, and I hope that with civil aviation we will start off in a different way and put people in charge of it who are there because of their keenness for their job, their anxiety to serve and their technical ability. We know what the position of the Corporation is at the present time. Two of the people on it represent the shipping industry, one is there because he is the son of a banker, and others are there because of their connection with the old companies. We must reorganise our outlook if the future of air transport is to be a good one for this country.
The House was much interested to hear about the Transport Command which the Minister announced, and I want to refer to it, because I believe it will have a great bearing upon the future of civil aviation. I assume that in forming the Transport Command for the R.A.F. the Minister has been influenced by the situation in America, where they have a Transport Command. There is, however, a great difference between the American system and what is, I imagine, to be the system here. Our civil aviation has always been considered the reverse of a military service. Indeed, the Cadman report said that they were two sides of the same coin. I believe that that is where a great mistake has been made. I hope there is no intention of handing over the whole of our civil aviation to the Royal Air Force and getting it tied up with it and run by military people from only a military point of view. When the war is over it has to be in a position to face a good deal of competition throughout the world. It is no use saying that we do not want competition; we have to face the fact that it will be there, and we have to be prepared for it. It should not be imagined that in America they have closed down all their air transport because they are serving the military requirements at the moment. According to a report from New York in December, although they have concentrated on serving their military requirements and have undertaken a great deal of work both internally and externally, their civil air mileage has decreased by only 28 per cent. The men who are running the Transport Command

in America are running it with commercial minds and with a civil point of view. The head is Mr. George, a regular officer, who has stated publicly that when the war is over he is going into aviation in the commercial world. His second in command is C. R. Smith, who is president of American Air Lines. Mr. Wilson, of the Trans-Continental Air Line, is a colonel in command of the line in Australia.
Indeed, instead of civil transport being turned over to the military, what has happened in America is that the military have handed over the business of its transport to commercially-minded people. The result will be that when the war is over their air transport will be in a much better position because of the war, in spite of the fact that it has spent so much of its time on military aviation. Let me read an extract from "American Aviation" for October, 1942:
If any one has any doubts as to the tremendous part the air lines are playing in the war effort, let him read North-West Air Lines financial report. This company, which had only 800 employees, now has over 3,600 and plans an expansion to 8,000 or 10,000. With other lines increasing proportionately for war work, think what this will mean in terms of qualified personnel for post-war expansion.
Those words were concerned with civil aviation. The importance of the announcement made by the Minister depends on whether he is going to ruin completely the prospects of civil aviation by putting the wrong people in charge of Transport Command. If it is simply to be British Overseas Airways Corporation with the same crew and run by them, it will merely be the same horse entered in another name, and it will not serve the purpose of the military machine or be of value, when the war is over, to civil aviation. I believe that to be very important, and I hope that the Minister will take particular notice of it.
A committee of members of the Labour Party have been considering this question of civil aviation. I have not been a member of the committee, but I have seen the report they have issued. One of the suggestions they make regarding the future of civil aviation is that it ought to be under a different Ministry. I know the Secretary of State will not take exception to this, but the committee suggest that civil aviation ought to be under the Ministry of Transport. I must disagree with my hon. Friends on that point. I do not want civil aviation mixed up with


shipping and railways, and I suggest that there, ought to be a separate Ministry for civil aviation. That is what is proposed in America at the present time, according to the reports we receive here. Let me give one other illustration of the way in which this matter is regarded in America. They are drafting young men into their Army, but it is significant that youths from colleges and universities are exempt from military service if they are going into the air line schools to be trained as civil air pilots. That indicates the outlook of America towards the future of civil aviation.
I have no desire to labour unduly the difference between ourselves and other countries in this matter, because I do not think we ought to look at it from the point of view of competition, or zones, or particular routes. I believe the situation has to be met in an entirely different way. I hope that the Government will be able to tell us, perhaps at the close of this Debate, or very shortly, what they propose to do, in conjunction with other Governments, regarding the international future of air transport. I hope the Government will approach the United States of America and do so with the words of Vice-President Wallace and Mr. Sumner Welles in mind rather than the statement of, say, Mrs. Claire Luce. I think it was Epictetus who said that every matter has two handles, and by the one it may be carried and by the other not; and this matter cannot be carried if we approach it in the wrong spirit, in the competitive spirit. What we ought to do is to take advantage of the great amount of co-operation there is among the United Nations during the war and try to carry that co-operation right through into the period of peace. We fly one another's planes and use one another's aerodromes, we provide facilities for the Americans over here and they lend us their goods, and we make our contribution to them in return. That is the spirit in which we ought to look at the future of civil aviation—from the point of view of co-operation and not of competition.
I should like to ask the Government whether they are preparing any plans and getting ready for discussions. Questions have been asked about it in the House, and we have been told that no discussions are going on with other coun-

tries as to the future of civil aviation. Are the Government preparing any plans for the future of civil aviation at home? In another place it was stated that it takes five years to get from the drawing-board to the finished plane. I think that is an exaggeration. Other people have suggested two years, and some of those connected with the industry say that transport planes could be built in less time than that. Whatever the time, there will be a considerable lag, and if anything is to be ready for the immediate period of need after the war, the Government must begin straight away. Have the Government entered into discussions with the Dominions? Shall we be able to go to America and say, "Here is the united view of the whole British Commonwealth; here we are with these resources which we are prepared to put at the service of mankind at large"?
I suggest that the Government should try immediately to open discussions with the United States and with Russia and consider the matter from the point of view of the international control of the whole of the airways of the world. That is the point to which the situation will finally come. Of course, it will be difficult, but that is no reason for not facing up to the task. It would remove a great many other difficulties which we should have to face if we went in for a partial scheme. It would do away with the difficulty of zoning. I hope the Government will not suggest that the air traffic of the world should be parcelled out. I notice that Mr. Runciman, who is one of the directors of British Overseas Airways Corporation, suggested only this week that a European system should be set up. What does that mean? If we are to talk of running a European system, putting America on one side and Russia on the other, that will mean splitting the world into zones, spheres of influence, balance of power, and world war No. 3 very shortly. The suggestion I make is that we ought to go all out for the internationalisation of the airways of the world. Let us go to Americans and Russians and propose straightaway an international directorate of aviation, with representatives from the Governments of all the countries which are prepared to join. Representatives of many of the United Nations are in this country at the present time. Let us get collaboration also with the Dominions and


make a proposal for an international direction and control of the whole of the airways of the world.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: What would you do with the nations that would not join? Would they run in competition?

Mr. Burke: If we got the support of America and Russia and the British Commonwealth we should have the support of the great air nations of the future. If we had that support, I do not think that other nations could afford to stand outside. At least it is well worth trying. We ought to try for the best and highest straightaway, because I am convinced chat in the long run we shall have to come to internationalisation, and if in the meantime we try for anything smaller, we shall only be running into competition after the war and laying the seeds of a future conflagration. If the Government will take that long view now, it will be taking the greatest practical step towards implementing the Atlantic Charter that can be taken, and be taking the greatest possible step towards guaranteeing the peace of the world in the future and the economic progress of mankind.

Mr. Bowles: I beg to second the Amendment.
Anyone who gives this subject any consideration at all will know that it is naught with the most serious difficulties. I have discussed it with many friends who know something about aviation, and I myself have had some flying experience and know other people who are particularly keen about the future development of the world. It seems to me that the proposals we get are of a rather small character. First, there is the type of man who never looks ahead at all but is a real individualist. He says that even in this country he would like to see air lines privately owned and run, say, between London and Scotland, and then that the Postmaster-General, for instance, should be able to switch over his mail contracts from one concern to another if there is a prospect of his getting a better service. That is the extremely competitive type of person, who, I think, really has no chance of getting his views accepted in the post-war world. There are others who have realised that probably some form of co-operation is necessary. There are those

who believe that the world should be divided into zones, each having its international authority but with one of the major Allied Powers exercising the main control in a zone. Another alternative is complete internationalisation, with air lines all being operated under the control of a great international corporation or committee on which the air Powers would be represented. I realise, as I am certain everyone else does, that the matter is full of difficulties.
Paying a certain amount of lip service, we may say that we are now co-operating with the Americans and our other Allies, and why should we ever become competitors in the future? But I think that unless the Government of each country accept some proposal along the lines which I shall indicate in a little while, serious difficulties will arise. Let me try to analyse some of the arguments now being put forward. Three or four times in this Debate Members have suggested that we should now devote some of our aircraft production facilities to making transport planes, so that we shall have some after the war, but in their minds they go further, because what they mean to say is that we ought to have a sufficient air fleet to be able to look Pan-American Airways in the face and do a bargain with them. Fundamentally those people know perfectly well that without some competing aircraft to throw into the bargain scale we shall get very little out of the bargain. Some countries will find themselves at the end of this war with no aircraft at all. Perhaps only three or four of the countries on the Allied side will be likely to have any aircraft: this country, America, Russia and possibly China. But I do not think that to set aside some of our aircraft production facilities now for the production of civil machines, so that we shall be in a position to engage in competing and bargaining afterwards, would be a really sensible proceeding. For at least 2½ years before they came into the war the Americans were building air transporters, and they are not even now devoting all their production to purely fighter and bomber aircraft.

Mr. Baxter: If we are not to do that, in what position shall we be at the end of the war? Already the Americans have fast passenger liners, and we shall have none. We all want to deal with them as friends, but one thing the Americans do


understand is—as those who play poker will appreciate—that if there is something in the kitty, you are in a stronger position.

Mr. Bowles: I do not know anything like so much as the hon. Member does about poker. But he must have failed to follow my argument, because I was saying that even if any transport organisation here had 100 or 200 transport planes that would not put us in a position to face them. Tin-pot lots of aircraft in the kitty will not be any good. They like kitties to be pretty big and full. Therefore, I do not think that even if His Majesty's Government turned over some of their aircraft production to the production of transporters, their position would be anything like strong enough in the competing world such as my hon. Friend appears to believe is likely to come about.
I am going to put my case on the highest possible plane. What I personally am concerned about is that we have to bear in mind, and to try to achieve, the best possible service to the user of aircraft, whether the user is the individual passenger, the Postmaster-General of any particular country or an ordinary business man who wants to use aircraft to send his cargo. Consideration for the user should come first. I am not anything like as concerned about things like national prestige in this matter of world air transport, and the world will not be concerned so much about them, when it gets a little older. It has to be put in the second place. I well remember that when an Imperial Airways liner or a British Airways liner touched down on an aerodrome, say Le Bourget, it at once ran up its flag in the front of the aircraft; and that was done whether the liner was British, K.L.M. or any other. I think that is quite wrong. It does not matter. What matters is: Here is an aircraft doing a good job of work. It supplies a service. Are the people who use it really satisfied with the service they are getting? That seems the most important question. We must put national or operating companies' prestige in a very much lower place than the prestige that one ought to get by giving good service in use.
The scheme I should like to put before the House, not for laughter but for serious consideration, is not one about which you can use airy phrases such as, "We must internationalise air transport," without specifying the form of the organisation. I

do not think it is good enough to say, as "The Times" aviation correspondent has said on one or two occasions, that the view is held that you should have a Corporation on which all Air Powers would be represented. My suggestion is that a body should be set up which might call itself World Airways, Ltd., or World Airways, Incorporated—I do not mind very much about the title—with power to issue three per cent. debenture stock in a decided quantity. It would be fixed-interest-bearing stock which would be made trustee stock. Governments, individuals, banks and commercial houses would be entitled to subscribe, and the organisation would receive the necessary capital.
The next thing, and a very important aspect of the matter, which I am adumbrating is that the directors or members of the board or committee should be the nominees of three small countries like, say, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and not the nominees of Powers like the British Government, the American Government and Russia. I do not say this frivolously, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give it some consideration. I hope that by this process of nomination a position would be established which is not so easily achieved when the nominations come from some of the bigger Governments. If, for instance, the American Government—I do not want any word of mine to be used as evidence of antagonism, so perhaps I had better say the British Government—felt it was not getting a square deal and wanted to do a little finessing, the great big British Government, if it tried to bring pressure to bear upon those nominees of the smaller countries would find that the weakness of the smaller countries would be their strength. The strength of the British Government would be shown to be its weakness. The appeal to the good sense and the feeling of justice of mankind and the world generally would make people say, "This is a body doing a good job of work. We use it and are satisfied, and we see no reason whatever why commercial interests, or commercial interests using their Governments, should try to prevent the proper carrying-out of the duty that these men and their employees are performing in the world."

Mr. Bartle Bull: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that the capital would come from Britain and America and that


the Norwegians, etc., would form the board of the proposed Corporation?

Mr. Bowles: Yes, it is quite possible.

Mr. Bull: I should like to see the hon. Gentleman trying to put it over in America or Britain.

Mr. Bowles: I am putting it over here now.

Mr. Bull: With all due submission, I do not think the hon. Gentleman is doing so.

Mr. A. Bevan: It will come, in time.

Mr. Bowles: It is possible to have a conception which is different from that of the hon. Member who interrupted me and which is a little new-minded and new-fashioned. The hon. Member seems to be rather an old-fashioned person.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker rose—

Mr. Bowles: Obviously, one of my remarks was out of Order. Hon. Members may put forward ideas in this House which sometimes come as a shock to other hon. Members. The idea of a wider representation than that of the capital invested may not appeal to some hon. Members. The body I am suggesting would be above national feeling. After all, it is not such a new thing. If the hon. Member had ever spent any time in Geneva, he would know it was possible for men to be so keen on their jobs in the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation as to put the international job above their national inclinations, whether they were British, American, Finnish or French. It is quite possible for honest men and women to do a job of service of that kind at the operating centre or various aerodromes, where they would have extraterritorial rights. If the interest of this Corporation is assured—and there would be no difficulty about the interest being assured—I see no reason why the capital could not be raised. People would be willing, even my hon. Friend opposite, who, I think, represents Enfield—and I am sure he would be glad to get 3 per cent.

Mr. Bull: I am glad to get the capital. I do not worry about the interest.

Mr. Bowles: I do not see any reason at all why the capital should be lost. There will be a world monopoly. It would be World Airways, Limited, and there would be no limitation at all. It would have a

right to run internal air lines and shuttle services, and there would be an end of the silly business which goes on when one wants to go from Amsterdam, say, to Calcutta. You start at Amsterdam and get to Karachi, from where you go on to Calcutta. [Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friend will not interrupt me any more. He does not wait to see what I am going to say. My ideas are generally a surprise. When in Karachi, if I want to go across to Calcutta on the K.L.M. line, I am not allowed to do so. These things seem too ridiculous. My hon. Friend would probably have the right to get his capital back; certainly the interest would make the whole thing worth while.
I do not think an objection really can be raised on the ground that Government organisation kills progress. Aviation of all things has developed by leaps and bounds in the two wars which we have had since it has been invented. Probably no progress anywhere has been quicker or bigger than that of aviation. In matters of that kind, when the alleged enterprising people who have been building aircraft at great personal difficulty and shortage of cash, as we know, obtained Government control and Government money, they were able easily to see the thing through to success.
The other question is, Is this proposal going to be too big? I do not think that is an objection. It is a very big organisation, but the world is small in aviation. It is most curious when I discuss this matter with friends of mine. I say, "Let us have a discussion on civil aviation," and they agree that the subject is tremendously important, as it is linked up vitally with our export trade. Then I propound a scheme which is very big and important, such as I am now putting to the House. My friends then try to explain that, after all, the problem of civil aviation is not quite so important, and nothing like so important as to demand an organisation really world-wide. This is an important subject and should be dealt with in a big way. I do not just toss these ideas into the arena to have them summarily dismissed, and I hope that my right hon. Friend, and anyone else with responsibility, will give them serious consideration in the same spirit as that in which I put them before hon. Members.

Mr. A. Edwards: The proposal just put forward by my hon. Friend really deserves serious consideration.


Aviation is perhaps the first thing that has happened in our lifetime that gives an opportunity for the real public utility international corporation. I wondered why the hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Bull) was so shocked at the idea that small people should have control when they have not provided the capital, but if the hon. Member had gone into matters concerning the Ministry of Aircraft Production at all, he would know that there are a number of organisations in this country on the boards of which there are no Government representatives but which are using a very considerable amount of Government money. There is one organisation with a capital of £2,000,000 or £3,000,000; the Government have £20,000,000 in it, but there is no Government representation. The hon. Member need not be shocked at the idea of some voluntary body such as my hon. Friend suggested.
My feeling about this job is that none of us know enough about this matter to form a final conclusion. We should be able to get a certain amount of information from the Minister, who will be able to give serious thought to it. So far the Minister has not shown any indication that he has given any thought to it at all. It is a very serious matter that we might find ourselves at the end of the war with no international air service and America controlling practically the whole world with a monopoly. Certain interests in America have made it clear that that is what they want. A very considerable amount of opinion has been expressed which upsets that possibility to some extent. The time is ripe now when we can stake a claim and make some happy arrangement for international control such as my hon. Friend has suggested; or perhaps the Minister can put forward a better one. Whatever the control is to be, I think the way we started with British Overseas Airways was the wrong one. We took over two Corporations. I do not know whether they were bankrupt or not, but certainly they did not make any money.
British Airways did not make any money. If some people on this side are accused occasionally of being too suspicious, let those concerned take a little care to remove the ground for suspicion. What happens here? An organisation owns one of the companies which presum-

ably has not been very successful; the Government come in and say "Let us take this into our own hands. This is going to be such a big problem we must have men of vision." That is the term used. I will tell you that two or three men who have shown some vision have been cleared out. The Minister knows about them. The Government's attitude rather implies that the men who had been running the company up to that time had not much vision. Otherwise, why take the action which the Government did take? These people took out of it £600,000. We repaid the owners of that company which had not been successful. They will tell you that they lost money on it. It is true they received £200,000 less than what was represented as paid-up capital, but they took out perhaps £200,000 more than the company was worth. That is the point, not how much they have lost in terms of nominal capital.
Let that be as it may, what was the sense of taking over a company which had not been very successful and leaving the same people to run it? Really the House must give consideration to this matter. Perhaps we cannot expect the present Government to organise a Socialist state for us but we have the right to demand that, in the application of their own theory, there should be at least intelligent capitalism if they want to run it in that way. We have the chairman, the vice-chairman, the director-general and the general manager, all, with one exception, connected with the old concern and with the financial interests which took out this very considerable sum of money. We have them going out to-day and preaching to different institutions in this country that Overseas Airways in no good for the future. Mr. Runciman, addressing a body of people in December, made it perfectly clear that so far as he was concerned his hope was pinned to private enterprise in the future. That is a man running a public utility corporation for the Government. A public utility corporation may be right or wrong, but the Government have committed themselves to it, so one would expect them to try to make a success of it. He said that he had not much hope in Government control in the future. Mr. Geddes, his immediate chief, in his speech to the shipowners, who are trying to get control of air lines, said in effect "Yes, you are quite right, boys—private enterprise.


There is no hope in this kind of thing I am running." The chairman is a director of the Southern Railway and the Southern Railway are trying to get well into the air transportation business after the war in the same way as they are trying with regard to road transport. The chairman of Overseas Airways encourages the railways with which he is connected, to destroy the organisation of which he is chairman. Three men out of the four damn the thing they are running, which is rather bad.
I do not know how you are going to hope for much success on that basis. At least do let us have more seriousness when you commit yourselves to an experiment. If it is an experiment let us try it for all it is worth. If other people think this thing is no good, let outsiders destroy it, not those on the inside. One of the men running it said "We shall have plenty of scope after the war for using our ingenuity and lining our pockets." That was a very unfortunate phrase perhaps——

Mr. Granville: Was that a public statement?

Mr. Edwards: Yes. I am not suggesting he meant it just as callously as it seems.

Mr. Wakefield: Will the hon. Member say who made that statement?

Mr. Edwards: I will if the hon. Member demands it. I did not want to bandy the name about. I have used people's names in this House and some have been victimised. I could give half a dozen such names—one in the last few weeks. Even the word of honour of Ministers has not been able to save them. There are Ministers on that Front bench who know that. If the hon. Member demands the name, I will give it to him privately. I have had some very bad experience in this respect. I think it is perfectly clear that the Government are in a predicament. They have committed themselves to one principle, and the people who are running it are doing their best to run it down.
The other people coming in are the shipping interests, and the shipping interests are fairly well represented in British Overseas Airways. I am bound to admit that, if anybody had to take over from Overseas Airways, I think the

shipping people are perhaps the best equipped to do it, if you are going to change your method. We here cannot hope in the immediate future to get the kind of system some of us would like. That being so, we must get the best which the other side can produce. The shipping people have a vast world-wide organisation. I have used it considerably in the past. It is very well-organised. I do not want to see another Department coming in, building a duplicate organisation and doing the same thing, because they will not do it as well. I can see a case for the shipping companies making considerable economies if they do it. They say they are willing to do it with their own capital, and without any Government subsidy. The present set-up is having a very considerable subsidy, and as it works to-day it will want one for some time, but if we are to have a change let us be quite clear what is meant by working without a subsidy. I do not think Pan-American Airways get a subsidy in the strict sense of the word, but they have wonderful air mail contracts. More than 50 per cent. of their revenue comes from mail contracts. When these people speak of coming into the business and running it without a subsidy, let the country be quite clear whether they are getting something better in the way of mail contracts. If the shipping people can do it, it might be better than the present set-up. That is for the Government to decide.
Why has not the Secretary of State been talking with America? It is remarkable that at this stage there have not been any conversations. I think the people to do the talking would be Overseas Airways but I believe they are forbidden by the Act. I believe the Under-Secretary is the man to take it up. Will he tell us whether he has taken any steps, and if not, why has he not? Perhaps the Secretary of State is responsible. Has he taken any steps, and if not, why not? Is he going on to the end of the war in that way, so that we shall find ourselves with no steps taken? Do what you like, you will never overtake Pan-American Airways. You are not going to get your own machines in time. Of course, if you think it is a gesture, you could have a few on hand and point to this fact and threaten them, but you will have to buy the first machines—and for a considerable time—in America.
Why not? They will have to buy something from us. We have been talking about exports and imports after the war. May I tell of an instance, which came to my notice in the last few days, which puts fear into my heart, because it shows the mentality of the people upon whom we have to depend? Here we have been encouraging people to get busy about the post-war export trade. I can tell of a man connected with a firm here who went to considerable trouble to get in touch with a Southern State of the United States. He got an organisation going in order to obtain a flying start with our exports. Right in the middle of the negotiations, which were doing splendidly, he has been instructed by the Foreign Office that his permit has expired and that he must come home. Now he has come home; he was in the House yesterday. At this late stage the Minister has to admit to us that he has not even taken the first steps to discuss the matter. It is most distressing. If he has not the time why does he not say to the people in the industry, "We will get an amendment to the Act. It is your business to see to this matter, so get busy with Pan-American Airways"? I love to see the Minister's smile, but it is a very unprofitable one in these circumstances. He ought to get busy; he has no time to smile. He should not laugh at us; he needs to get busy, and give us a much more impressive statement than he has given to-day.

Mr. A. Bevan: I did not intend to intervene in this Debate. I do so only because the House is so sparsely attended. That may be a very unusual thing to say, but it is true. It seems to me to be a reflection upon the status of the House in its relationship to the powers of the Executive that one of the most important problems of the time is being discussed in so thin a House. Hon. Members in all parts of the House should realise that in the matter of civil aviation we are handling international dynamite. Anyone who reads the American newspapers, who has read the shrill denunciations of Senator Luce, who has read some of the American trade papers, or who knows some of the things that my hon. Friend the Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards) has been telling the House, will realise that we are considering one of the test questions of international co-operation, upon which I

do not hesitate to say the future peace of the world depends. How we solve this question will be a symbol of how all other international problems are to be solved. All over the world, particularly in America, in Russia, among the Poles, among the Dutch, among the Free French, and among ourselves, a very large body of young men are being mobilised and trained, with their own special identifications, with their own flags, which have special emotional associations, and with a jealous regard for the status of their own flags, which is going to be very difficult to deal with when you come to consider how it is to be fitted into some scheme of international co-operation. So I ask that this shall be not the least but the first of a number of discussions here, about this problem.
I have one point of disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for East Middlesbrough. I do not object to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has not yet begun discussions. I would protest if he had begun his discussions, without first having preliminary discussions here. I do not want him to meet American representatives, officially or unofficially, nor do I want commercial interests over here to discuss the matter with their opposite numbers in America until we have discussed first principles. I do not want us to be confronted with a fait accompli. I would not like those commercial interests which are already snarling like beasts of prey to be stimulated into excessive zeal just now. I understand that the American Government have asked that we shall take part in discussions on post-war reconstruction. I hope that we shall respond—we have, I think, done so—but I hope that we shall not have a repetition of the Economic Conference of 1934, in which everybody went in with nothing to give but hoping to take something away. [An HON. MEMBER: "Led by the Americans."] Not only the Americans. We were all to blame. No nation went in prepared to put something into the common pool, but they all wanted to take something out. There was no pool to take anything out of, and the result was that the conference broke down in ignominious recrimination, leaving ill feeling behind. I hope that if we take part in discussions with the Americans and the Russians we shall be prepared to abrogate many of our sovereign claims and to throw something into the pool for mankind's


sake. That is why I am glad to have this discussion, and why I hope it will be the first of a number on this subject.
The problem of civil aviation can be approached in one of two ways—either as an opportunity for exploitation or as an opportunity for international organisation. If you look upon it as a problem with which mankind is faced, the problem of how to organise civil aviation for human beings in a very much contracted world, there are certain solutions which immediately spring to mind. But if you are to consider international aviation as an arena of commercial exploitation, a number of other solutions occur, fraught with their special dangers. I have been reading some of the trade papers on this matter, and many of them are asking for free air. Free air means merely that you shall have international competition, so that anybody can go into the air or take passengers up and put passengers down wherever they wish. That is the claim they are making. The hon. Lady opposite need not shake her head.

Mrs. Tate: I did not shake my head.

Mr. Bevan: I beg the hon. Lady's pardon. This is what has been claimed, and this is what has been said by a number of commercial interests now masquerading as executives of the Government. They want free air. See what happens if that occurs. We, as has been already pointed out, are very much behind. We have a small land area. We have not developed Imperial Airways sufficiently. We have not produced transporter planes, not only because we did not have our commercial future sufficiently in mind, but because we have never yet understood the nature of the war, so that we are still short of passenger planes, which are a very effective instrument of war. America has got them. Even the Dutch have more than we have.

Mrs. Tate: They had before the war.

Mr. Bevan: Yes, they had them before the war—more than we have.

Mr. Granville: Is my hon. Friend aware that before the war we ran practically all our services on foreign machines?

Mr. Bevan: Yes, and, as I say, even the Dutch had more. Therefore, if we are to

start off by competition in free air, we are going to be very much behind. We are not armed with the weapons with which to fight that kind of commercial war. It is true, as my hon. Friend said, that we can buy planes, but that means operational competition with planes that we buy from other countries. Operational competition means that you will be up against an absolutely insurmountable difficulty. I remember when I was a member of a local authority in Wales, being chairman of an ad hoc body representing about 50 local authorities exercising licensing power over road passenger transport. We were operating at that time under a very old precept. We had an authority with a limited territorial area giving licences to a form of transport that had long transcended those areas, so we had to form ourselves into larger combinations, because the omnibuses licensed from a rural area stopped outside the urban area and the urban omnibuses could then take up the passengers and carry them into the urban area. The rich urban traffic starved the rural traffic and therefore the rural rates were very much higher than urban rates. In order to make urban passenger transport cheap, effective and just you had to give a licence to the man who served rural and urban areas together. What is to happen after the war? Before the war, long distance traffic was at a lower rate per mile than short distance traffic, but new methods after the war will make short distance traffic cheap.
If your international airways are to do the job, they must have access to the rich passenger traffic inside the frontiers of each country. So, we are faced with the same problem on a larger scale, in terms of civil aviation, as that which we had in road passenger transport after the last war. The approach to the problem is the same. What would happen if you had competition? We know what is occurring now. The shipping companies are coming in, and every kind of commercial interest is raising its head, and people will be watching how far vested interests are going to influence and exploit this vital matter and therefore upset the peace of the world. I would say to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air that in this matter—I am saying this with the greatest possible kindness—he and some of his friends were, quite properly—I am


not complaining—associated before the war with commercial airways in this country and therefore they must remember—I am not making this as a threat—that the policy of His Majesty's Government in this matter will be examined meticulously to see how far those commercial interests are having an undue influence upon the development of the policy of His Majesty's Government.

Captain Balfour: Is the inference of the hon. Member that because in 1938, before I was asked by Mr. Chamberlain to join his Government, I was interested as a technical director of a particular concern, I would, in some way, exercise my office in an improper way?

Mr. Bevan: Oh, no, I carefully guarded myself against that.

Mrs. Tate: The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has spent a considerable time telling us how ill-equipped we are compared with America—with every word of which I agree—but does he not think it slightly contradictory to try in the next moment to portray the evils that would occur if air lines were run, for instance, by shipping companies? Is he not ignoring the fact that in America, which he has so favourably compared with ourselves, there are 18 competing air lines, and is it not vital to stop this policy of one chosen instrument if you ever want to be able to run them at all?

Mr. Bevan: I pointed out that if you abolished the chosen instrument and had a number of private competing concerns, you would have exactly the same sort of thing that we had after the last war in regard to road transport. [Interruption.] If the hon. Lady will permit me, I will develop that. What will happen? Some companies will find themselves with more capital than others, some with better routes than others and some with more political influence than others. Not only that. British companies may find themselves hopelessly handicapped as against American companies. I will tell the hon. Member what will happen. There will be backstair methods and wirepulling in order to get subsidies, direct or indirect, for British companies in order to sustain them against American competition. This has happened in other industries where this sort of competition has taken place. It has happened in shipping and in coal; it

has happened in every country in the world and is bound to happen here. Behind it will be all the prestige of the R.A.F. and the Union Jack, and you will all be saying how essential it is to retain flying men here and the direction of transport aircraft because of the possibilities of war occuring again, and your civil aviation will be linked up with military aviation. We had that before. Everybody in this House knows that it is true. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) can contradict me, if she manages to catch Mr. Deputy-Speaker's eye.
Hon. Members in all parts of the House know that it is absolutely true that already in America the "Stars and Stripes" is being invoked for the future of civil aviation, and soon the Union Jack will be brought into the controversy here. If we are careful and statesmanlike and have vision in this matter, we shall avoid that situation. That sort of thing arises out of exploitation and out of private economic adventure in civil aviation. Supposing you abandon that, because of its obvious dangers and the Government becomes a partner and we have an international civil aviation board, on which representatives of the Government will sit, it will be even worse. All you will do is to stage, inside your international aviation conference, a competition between Governments. You will have the problems of zoning and of delimitation, and every problem, appearing as a quarrel between Governments, will be a quarrel between private companies seeking to invoke the aid of their own Governments. These attempts to solve civil aviation in present conditions of limited national sovereignties is a detriment to the peace of the world, especially when we consider that many millions of pounds of private capital is involved in these enterprises. That is why I approve and support the solution which has been tentatively put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles). You need to have some central organisation, as he has suggested, in which not the strong countries but the weak countries would be given a chance. The strong countries would enter negotiations with guns in their hands. In all this matter of power politics the ultimate arbiter will be the size of the striking power of the nations taking part in the negotiations. There will be no principle of international justice, because the user of transport ser-


vices will pass into the background and the claims of the various nations will come into the foreground. This quarrel will go on in sight of the whole world with guns in the background as the final arbiter.
If you have an International Aviation, Ltd., with individuals everywhere having investments in it and their own future being thereby involved in its success, you will have Bournemouth linked up with Minneapolis and both linked with Rotterdam. You will have an international citizenry having an international vested interest concerned with promoting and defending that interest against fragmentation by international rivalries. You will, for the first time in the history of the world, have built up a citizen interest in the maintenance of an international service, and your weak nations will be able to resist the strong nations because they will be able to appeal to organised world opinion to help them. If in addition to International Aviation, Ltd., you grant extra-territorial rights, many of the nations co-operating will have their own landing fields, gendarmerie, their own services and their own uniforms, not belonging to the flying forces of America or Great Britain, as a symbol and personification of international service with an élite of its own. You will have for the first time in the history of the world a framework in which you can build other services. Every time you approach this problem from apparently the same practical point of view there are more difficulties than in the ideal solution which I am trying to put forward to the House.
That is why we should remember, as H. G. Wells has said, that the frame of the past has been broken, that a new frame must be created and that that frame must have a world basis, because all these problems are world-wide. I hope hon. Members in all parts of the House will approach the problem from this angle: that they must think about this now as world citizens, lest world war No. 3 makes us pay for our lack of vision.

Earl Winterton: I do not think this Debate can be left where it has been left by the eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who, no doubt, will be surprised to learn that I agree with him to some extent, although I disagree with him most fundamentally

in other respects. I would like to suggest a possible solution, which I think is a probable solution in view of world events, which would be neither completely sympathetic to my hon. Friends opposite nor to my hon. Friends on this side of the House. As I vociferously supported my hon. Friends behind me who have protested against the growing practice of Ministers, I want to take this opportunity of congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary on the administration of their office and their general approach to matters in this House, although I will leave aside their particular approach to-day They should, indeed, be proud to sit on the Treasury Bench to represent this great Service during the most critical years of its existence.
Where I differ from my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale is this: It is not the least use his talking about the abolition of power politics. Power politics and the balance of power will be with us in the future far more strongly than in the past and will reside in China, the Soviet Republics, the United States of America and in the British Commonwealth of Nations. Nothing can alter that fact; no arguments, however eloquent, addressed by any Member of this House will alter the fundamental fact that the United States of America, Soviet Russia and China are determined to have control over the air services within their own territories. The idea that all these three countries—and, indeed, our own—would submit to control by some world body, consisting as I understood him to say, largely or mainly of small nations, is to know nothing of the realities of the situation or to know that the great President of the Soviet Republics, Premier Stalin, is one of the greatest realists in the world. I sometimes think that I would like to have Premier Stalin in this House so that he could put a few home truths to us all. He would tell us the ugly, naked, realistic facts, which are not always put in this House. If the House has a fault it is that it is often inclined to be led away by sentiment and soft and wishful thinking and to present a case in an attractive way believing that it represents the truth. Unfortunately, it often does not in the tough world in which we are living. As I have said, it is impossible to suppose that these three countries or our own


would submit to international control of an internationalised air service.
I now intend to agree with something my hon. Friend said. I do not believe it is possible—and it is not because I like State control; obviously, as a Tory I do not—to leave the question of civil aviation in the hands of unrestricted private enterprise. I agree with that part of my hon. Friend's argument. It is an appalling prospect that there should be completely free competition in this matter. I can say what I know the Minister cannot say, that I hope that point will be made clearly in any discussions we have with America. All of us must be careful in speaking on this subject, because we all have an equal responsibility, outside the Government, to avoid saying anything which may offend our great Allies, but some of the views expressed about civil aviation in America have, in the opinion of many of us here, caused very considerable apprehension indeed. I think that apprehension might be conveyed in a tactful and proper manner to the Government and people of the United States. The story cannot be told publicly, but features of it are rather alarming. Fortunately, however, some statesmen in the United States appear to be alive to the dangers and are warning their people of what the effect might be.
I think it would be desirable if the four great Allies, and the smaller Allies as well, tried to come to some agreement before the war is over that they intend to nationalise or control civil aviation. This would, of course, involve their extending that control to the machines which, fly over other countries. Although a great deal has been said, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, about the danger of zoning, I confess that unless something in the nature of zoning takes place, I do not see how it will be possible to avoid exactly those dangers which my hon. Friend is anxious to avoid.

Mr. Bevan: Does not my noble Friend realise that the problems of zoning arise entirely out of the realism which he says he brings to the matter? If there are four Powers which have to agree about the organisation of civil aviation, there will have to be zones, and there the conflict will arise.

Earl Winterton: I agree with my hon. Friend that there will be difficulties, but I want to say something here with which I think he will agree, although I must be careful how I deal with the matter, because I might be out of Order if I appeared to be getting on to another subject. The problem will be a great one, but it will not be greater than the one which will have to be solved between the four nations before we win the war, and that is, the production of a strategic policy, which I think is not there—a united strategic policy to win the war. The greater will include the less, and it may then be possible, after the war, to do something of the kind to which I have referred.
I do not wish to stand between the House and the right hon. Gentleman to whom the House will naturally want to listen much more than to me, but, in conclusion, I say again to my hon. Friends opposite that the idea of free competition in international civil aviation is impossible. I can agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale that if there is to be national control of civil aviation, it should be done openly and properly, and not merely by means of some form of subsidy, because there is danger—naturally, I do not associate myself with all the criticisms that have been made by hon. Members on this side—that if there is a form of control which is a subsidy to a private company, it may lead to undesirable results both in peace-time and in war. Let us do it openly. At the same time I was rather alarmed by what was said by the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague), who himself once occupied office at the Air Ministry, on the subject of internationalisation. I beg hon. Members to be careful in that matter. Above everything else, we have to realise that we are dealing with other countries as well as ourselves, and that it would not be of the least use doing one thing here if we could not get other countries to agree with us. In the long run it will be a question of compromise. I think that good work and an efficient task has been performed by the House in discussing these matters. It is as well that not only our own country, but our Allies and other countries should know the great and growing interest there is in this country in these matters and that some anxiety has been aroused in our minds by some of the things that have been said even by some


of those who are the most friendly of our Allies.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: There is one aspect of post-war civil aviation which may have escaped the mind of the Secretary of State and which has not been raised in the Debate; it is the question of the ownership, after the war, of the aerodromes which we have already. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has looked at the contracts which allow us at least to call these aerodromes our aerodromes at present, but if it is the case that, with the cessation of hostilities, we are likely to lose some hundreds of aerodromes and then suddenly find that when we need them for post-war air transport, the nation has to buy them back, and probably pay a hundred times the original price to acquire them for the use of the nation, it will be a very serious state of affairs. It will be a bad day for us if, after we have developed these aerodromes, some municipality or other, recognising that there is a good aerodrome outside the town, finds that the system which has been followed by the Government makes it necessary for the municipality to buy that aerodrome for the purpose of having some scheme such as there is in Doncaster, where the land for a municipal aerodrome was obtained at what I believe to have been a fairly reasonable price. We do not want to allow the landlords, as well as the other persons who have been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), to creep in. I do not want to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) in regard to the nationalisation of land, but I hope the Government's policy will be that what we have we own at the present time, and that after the war we shall not allow any landlord class to creep in simply because we have failed to see that the contracts for existing aerodromes properly cover the matter. I would like to have an assurance that in this matter the landlord class will not creep in to exploit us after the war.

Sir A. Sinclair: In reply to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden), let me say at once that, far from giving up any aerodromes, I am sorry to say we have still to continue the process of

acquiring land and constructing new aerodromes; I am sorry because it makes so much interference with agriculture and food production, but glad indeed because it is a sign of the expanding power of the Royal Air Force. As to what the future may hold and how these aerodromes will be disposed of after the war, I do not think I am entitled to make any pronouncement now on behalf of the Government. Do not let the hon. Member think I was in any disagreement with what he said, for I listened with great sympathy to his point of view, but I do not think I a entitled to make a pronouncement now on behalf of the Government.

Mr. Walkden: Do we own those aerodromes now?

Sir A. Sinclair: As the hon. Member has raised the point I will look very carefully into it to see whether or not we own them all. If I answered rashly, "Yes," I might easily find that I had walked into a trap and that there are in fact some which we do not own, but I will look into the matter. Let me say now that I am very grateful to those hon. Members who have spoken in the Debate and have shown so clear a recognition of the repercussions which unfortunate statements would be certain to have in other countries. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke), who made such an interesting speech, referred to the statements that have been made on both sides of the Atlantic and which have naturally disturbed opinion in the opposite country. The hon. Member asked me whether I had been influenced, in bringing the Transport Command into existence, by the fact that there was already an Army Transport Command in the United States. The answer is "No, I have not been influenced by that." What has happened is that similar causes in the two countries have produced similar results. In America they have long had substantial numbers of air transport at the disposal of the Army Air Corps and the Navy Air Corps, and they have required to have a Transport Command to control those transport squadrons. We are at last about to have substantial numbers of transport aircraft at our disposal, and that is why I now need to bring this Transport Command into being.
The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke) raised the question as to what Ministry civil aviation should fall under after the war. I would ask hon. Mem-


bers to keep an open mind on that. I am not asking them to decide in favour of the status quo but to keep an open mind. It is one of the subjects which the Government will have to consider very carefully in connection with the future of civil air transport, and the alternative suggestions which have been made will require very careful consideration. The hon. Member said he had very little sympathy with the idea of bringing it under the Ministry of War Transport, for reasons which seemed to me very strong. I think we must all keep an open mind as to what must be done after the war. He suggested a new Ministry. Of course, we shall finish the war with a very large crop of new Ministries. I am not at all sure that, when the time comes, it may not be wise to continue civil aviation under the Air Ministry, which has already obtained so much practical experience in that field. The hon. Member also said, rightly, that the policy of the Government is that of employing one chosen instrument to organise control of overseas air transport services. That is and remains our policy. That instrument is, of course, now working under my direction, and all its services are used for purposes connected with the war. Whether or not we shall in peace time have one chosen instrument is again one of the things that are being brought under consideration by the Government, and I am not prepared at this moment to prejudge that issue.
The hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards) raised a number of questions about speeches which have been made by officials and directors of British Overseas Airways Corporation. He will not expect me to reply to that because I have not had an opportunity of reading those speeches, but I thought he made a serious allegation when he said that one of the directors of the Corporation had stated that they would have plenty of scope to line their own pockets. That is a very serious allegation to make without giving the name of the director or the occasion.

Mr. A. Edwards: I will give the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the speech.

Sir A. Sinclair: Do I understand that it was a public speech, in which case I cannot imagine why the hon. Member did not mention the name of the director?

Mr. Edwards: It was Mr. Runciman. It was quite public. The Minister ought to have seen it.

Mr. Burke: It is fairly general knowledge. I have heard it myself, and I understand that the director-general made the speech in December.

Mr. Bevan: Why should the right hon. Baronet object? Ought he not rather to be grateful to this director for being so frank?

Sir A. Sinclair: I may have misunderstood the hon. Member, but, if I understood him aright, this gentleman is alleged to have said that he, as a director of a public company, was looking forward to lining his own pockets after the war.

Mr. Edwards: I was careful to say that it was a crude statement and an unfortunate phrase and that it probably did not mean what it appeared to mean.

Sir A. Sinclair: I cannot help thinking that the hon. Member might have found out what Mr. Runciman meant before he gave currency to the statement. I shall certainly study the speech to find out whether the hon. Member has given a fair interpretation of the phrase in its context.

Mr. Edwards: The Minister must not try to get away with something I did not say. I have not attempted to interpret it.

Sir A. Sinclair: I think it is a little unfair to people outside who are carrying heavy responsibilities. These directors have worked very faithfully and well for this Corporation with very meagre resources. I think it would have been fair to them to have found out what was meant by this, before making a quotation from the speech, which I think gave the House, and is likely to give the public outside, the impression that these trustees for the public interest in this great Corporation are, unashamedly, lining their own pockets.

Mr. Edwards: I must ask for your protection, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was particularly careful in what I said. I was talking of the responsible directors of this Corporation talking down the public utility idea to which the Government are committed and which they are running. The argument was intended to show that, after the war, private enterprise was to have full sway and not this type of thing. I said it was an unfortunate phrase which


probably did not mean what might be inferred from it. Before going further the Minister had far better read the OFFICIAL REPORT. It will be fairer to me.

Sir A. Sinclair: I do not think the hon. Member conveyed to the House the meaning he thinks he did.

Mr. Bevan: The statement was:
I am not concerned here and now to judge between these views but only to record my conviction that both now and in the future there is a place for every form of transport, and that we shall all find plenty of opportunity to exercise our wits and line our pockets in discovering how best to carry the greatest possible loads in the best possible way.

Sir A. Sinclair: I imagine that in making that speech the director was not referring to lining his own pocket.

Mr. Bevan: I read the speech yesterday but I did not myself pay very much attention to what was obviously a very maladroit performance. He was speaking to a very large number of people interested in commercial exploitation of civil aviation after the war and was referring to himself and all others who were looking forward to that situation.

Sir A. Sinclair: He never meant, I am sure, that he was going to use his position as a director of this Corporation or to use the Corporation as a means of lining his own pocket.

Mr. Edwards: It is a gross impertinence to suggest that I made such a statement.

Sir A. Sinclair: That was the impression that I and, I know, other Members gained from the hon. Member's remarks.

Mr. Edwards: The Minister has done far more damage by prolonging this discussion than anything that I said. I referred to it quite incidentally, and when he reads the OFFICIAL REPORT, I am sure that he will agree that he owes me an apology. I went out of my way to try to defend Mr. Runciman. I have spoken to him about this and there is no reason why such an impertinent interpretation should be put upon my remarks. It cannot possibly be true, and I had no such idea in my mind. I know Mr. Runciman far too well to think such a thing.

Sir A. Sinclair: Then I cannot understand the point of the hon. Member's remarks. The impression he conveyed to me was different from that which he now

says he intended and which I gladly accept. These directors have worked under my direction faithfully and well. As I have said, what the future of the Corporation will be is a matter for the Government to consider and decide. The hon. Member went on to inquire why I had not started talking to the Americans, or why I did not ask the directors of British Overseas Airways Corporation, with whose conception of their duties he did not agree, to talk to the Americans. I think that the hon. Member was effectively answered by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan). It is not for me, an individual Minister, to broach the question. It is a question which can only be considered in its relation to the whole of our foreign policy and of our international relations after the war.

Earl Winterton: Would my right hon. Friend qualify that a little? When he uses the words "after the war" I hope he does not mean that this difficult and delicate question, which must be settled before the war is over, is not going to be dealt with on the higher level by the War Cabinet or the Prime Minister, with the President, before that time.

Sir A. Sinclair: I am obliged to my Noble Friend for making that clear. What I meant by "after the war" is that we must consider now what the position will be after the war, and the policy for civil aviation will have to bear relation to our whole field of international policy after the war. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale said that after the war nations would be coming into conferences on civil aviation with guns in their pockets. If that is so, a great many other things besides civil aviation will come to shipwreck, and a great many other hopeful plans for the future progress of mankind will come to shipwreck. In these circumstances we can only hope that it will be possible to obtain a good feeling between those nations mentioned by my Noble Friend, on whom will reside the power for good or ill to influence the destinies of mankind for decades and perhaps generations to come. Our only hope is that a different spirit will prevail in their councils.
The large issues of policy which were dealt with in several speeches, including those of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke), the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, my Noble Friend, and the hon. Member


for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles), transcend the field for which I am responsible in this House. Accordingly, I have taken the occasion to consult my colleagues on these matters, and I regret to have to convey it to my Noble Friend, but I am about to read some observations which I am enabled to make on behalf of the War Cabinet.
His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the importance of post-war civil air transport, particularly to a country like the United Kingdom with its overseas responsibilities and its dependence on overseas trade. This has been made clear in statements by Government spokesmen in this House and in another place. The present war, like all wars, has acted as a forcing-house for technical developments, and the potentialities of aviation in the future are very great. We must not, as a nation, fail to play our full part in the development of civil aviation after the war. This also in fully appreciated by His Majesty's Government. Since the outbreak of war, the plain fact is that the resources of the British aircraft industry have been concentrated on the production of combat and training types. When we look back on the urgent need in 1940 and 1941 to produce fighters for the defence of this island and the continuing need of aircraft of the highest performance for our bombing offensive, for anti-U-boat work, and for the close support of our troops in the field, no one would question the wisdom of this policy.
Nevertheless, the time has now arrived when His Majesty's Government should consider what can be done—always without impairing our war effort—to prepare for the return of peace, be it sooner or later. That is why the Government, as one of several preparatory steps, set up a Committee early this year under Lord Brabazon of Tara to consider broadly the post-war types of civil aircraft likely to be required. The Committee lost no time. Their report, which is a secret document, was received three weeks ago. They recommended that work should start immediately on the design of civil aircraft of new types, which they defined in very general terms, and on preparing for the conversion of military aircraft and for the production of such types as are suitable for civil work. His Majesty's Government are grateful to Lord Brabazon and his colleagues on the Committee for their careful

and practical review. Whatever form of international collaboration may be devised for post-war civil air transport, it will clearly be the duty of this country, both from our own and from an international point of view, to play a prominent part in the production and operation of civil aircraft.
The aircraft manufacturing industry is to-day our largest industry. We possess great technical skill and experience in aircraft and aero-engine design and construction. The types of aircraft on which we have so far concentrated are unsurpassed for quality and performance. We are confident that we can make a real contribution to the development of civil air transport after the war and it is our intention to do so. The first thing to be done is to take the necessary steps to provide aircraft of the types that will be required for passenger and goods transport after the war.
The War Cabinet have accordingly taken the decision that the design of a limited number of types of civil aircraft shall proceed with the assistance of the Government as and when it can be arranged without interfering with work on aircraft required for the war. The resources of the British aircraft industry in design staff are limited, and it is only by the unceasing efforts of the designers that British technical superiority over the enemy in military types has been, and will in the future be, maintained. However, we shall, in association with the industry, do our utmost to organise design staffs of the high calibre required so that they may start without delay on the design of some, at least, of the new types recommended and on conversion work.
The Government are also giving close attention to the organisation of civil air transport on the international plane after the war. There are many different possibilities—from world-wide international operation to the "closed air" system of the pre-war years, or even to the unregulated "freedom of the air." The last would inevitably mean fierce competition and the continuation of high uneconomic subsidies. In the view of His Majesty's Government, some form of international collaboration will be essential if the air is to be developed in the interests of mankind as a whole, trade served, international understanding fostered, and some


measure of international security gained. The problems are, of course, immense and cannot be solved by one country alone. We, in this country, live in a small island and our internal services can never have anything like the same importance as the internal services operated within a large land area. This is one of the factors which must be taken into account and it is not being overlooked.
None of the arrangements we have made during the war with regard to air transport in any part of the world precludes us from working out new plans. Our exploratory work is, in fact, in hand and we are now in preliminary consultation with the Dominions and India. Consultation with other members of the United Nations will follow. For though air transport is a young industry and its potentialities have everywhere fired the imagination, its organisation in the post-war world cannot be considered in isolation but must be so framed as to be consistent, in spirit and in truth, with the principles which should govern the international economic policy of the United Nations after the war.

Earl Winterton: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend again, but the statement he has just made is very important. He said that it was made after consultation with his colleagues. Will he make it clear that that is really a statement of policy of the War Cabinet? Will he also consider whether it would not be well worth while to have this published as a White Paper?

Sir A. Sinclair: On the first point, I did say that I was making a statement on behalf of the War Cabinet. On the second point, perhaps that could be considered through the usual channels.
To look ahead is a virtue, but not if it means to slacken on the job in hand. We shall not make that mistake. I have said enough, I hope, to show that we have not been inactive. I have disclosed as much as can be disclosed. For the rest, I must ask the House to give us its confidence at this stage, as I am sure the House will understand that it would be a disservice to the national interest and might prejudice the success of negotiations that have not yet started, to press us to say more now.

Mr. Perkins: In view of the very great importance of the statement

which the right hon. Gentleman has just made, and in view of the fact that Members in all parts of the House would probably like to have an opportunity of reading it and digesting it, will he use his influence with the Government to get a full day for the discussion of this matter, either a Supply day or some other day?

Sir A. Sinclair: The Government realise that there is great interest in this subject and that the House will require to have a day set aside for its discussion, and the Government are very willing for that to be done. I hope for the reasons which I have given in my statement that hon. Members will not press for it soon, but a day must certainly be provided, and I have no doubt that it will be.

Mr. Burke: There is one question I should like to put. Is it still the intention of the Government to maintain one chosen instrument for civil aviation or to let in any of the other interests?

Sir A. Sinclair: I hoped that I had made it clear that everything must be regarded as open, that there is no bar at all. Certainly the policy of the chosen instrument remains the policy of the Government now, but when we are thinking of the future after the war we are not bound to existing arrangements.

Mr. Granville: I think the House has heard the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman with a great deal of satisfaction, but there are just two or three points I should like to put forward. First, I should like to ask whether he will get in touch with the Minister of Labour, because I think there is some danger in the fact that some of those on the designing staff, who are very important, are being called up in this latest call-up? If designers are wanted for this new project it might be as well to keep them back in its interest. The second point is that the right hon. Gentleman referred to getting in touch with the Dominions, and in that connection may I ask him to consider the interchange of designs and technical information and all the rest of it with the Dominion Governments?

Mr. Burke: In view of the statement which has been made I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," again proposed.

Major Neven-Spence: I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive this brief incursion into the Debate at this hour. The point I have to bring to his notice concerns merchant seamen. At first sight it may not seem to concern his Ministry, but when I tell him that the point concerns the facilities which these men have for reaching their homes when on leave, and that his Ministry alone can provide a remedy for their present grievance, I feel assured not only of a sympathetic hearing but, what is much more important, of prompt and effective action. The difficulty has arisen in this way. In the ordinary course of events these seamen, of whom I represent 3,000 officers and men—a very large proportion in a population of 20,000—from time to time get leave. They have to go to Aberdeen and trust to get home by sea. In normal times the sea service is quite adequate for their needs, but that is not the case now, and instances have come to my notice of officers and men of the Merchant Service having to spend the whole of their leave at Aberdeen, without being able to get home at all. I do not think I need stress the tremendous hazards which these men are undergoing and the very great hardships they suffer. Many of my constituents have been torpedoed, not once but twice or thrice, in all the oceans of the world, and I am sorry to say that a great many of them have lost their lives. Hon. Members know what the casualties in the Merchant Service have been. It is a very great hardship that even one officer or man of our Merchant Navy should be deprived of one of these rare opportunities of reaching his home and visiting his parents or his wife and family.
This is where my right hon. Friend comes into the picture. He may think that the Ministry of War Transport or the Admiralty ought to deal with this question. Both the Ministry of War Transport and the Admiralty, I am glad to say, have co-operated over this question to the utmost limits of which they are capable, and because of what they have done most of those 3,000 men do manage to get home, but there remain a small number who simply cannot get home by the sea route. There is only one way by which they can get home, and that is to be taken there by air. What distresses me so much is that I find that

a few of these men lie in Aberdeen for a week or it may be 10 days and that during that time perhaps 20 or 30 civil planes have flown to Shetland and yet they have not been able to get a seat in any plane.
I invite my right hon. Friend to deal with this matter himself. I can give him an enormous amount of information about it, and I am sure there is a remedy which he can apply. The civil airways flying to Shetland are mostly taken up with Government cargo, and that is as they should be. They take officers and officials on duty and carry the mails. It is obvious that all the people who travel on them have not the same urgency in their voyages, and there has come into operation a priority system divided into four grades. The first is A1, which obviously concerns very high officers and officials, and the other grades are A, B and C, the last being a very low-grade priority. I can assure my hon. Friend—and I travel constantly by this line—that if he will scrutinise the lists carefully he will find many who are travelling on the C priority, and in fact on all those priorities, who could make use of the greatly improved sea transport and thus leave room for the very small number of men of the Merchant Service to whom I have referred. The thing could be done without any fear of abuse.
My right hon. Friend could leave the matter to the Merchant Shipping Federation Reserve Pool in Aberdeen. The officer in charge could have the duty of recommending any hard case by telegraph to the Air Ministry. He could say, "Here is a sea captain with five days' leave who has come back, perhaps from Murmansk or North Africa. We want to get him home and back. He must rejoin his ship by a certain date. Will you give this man a priority?" I am not going to say any more on the subject and I do not expect my right hon. Friend can give me an answer now. I ask him to look into the matter most carefully, because it is raising a great deal of feeling in my part of the world. Much of this feeling comes back to me because I have been interested in these transport and leave problems since the war started. I have had communications from men in all the Services on the matter. Everything is now all right, except this one point and I am sure that my right hon. Friend can provide the remedy.

Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" put, and agreed to.

Supply accordingly considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair.]

NUMBER FOR AIR FORCE SERVICE

Resolved,
That such number of Officers and Airmen, as His Majesty may deem necessary, be borne for the Air Force Service of the United Kingdom at Home and Abroad, excluding those serving in India on the Indian Establishment, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944.

PAY, &C., OF THE AIR FORCE

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, &amp;c, of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944.

AIR SERVICES SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1942

Resolved,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10ro, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Air Services for the year.


Schedule.



Sums not exceeding.


Supply Grants.
Appropriations in Aid.


Vote.
£
£


1. Pay, &amp;c. of the Air Force.
10
60,000,000

Resolutions to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, the sum of £12,001,057 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Resolved,
That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, the sum of £208,773,300 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Sir J. Edmondson.]

Resolutions to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTER- TAINMENTS

Resolved,
That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Parish of Aldenham, in the Rural District of Watford, a copy of which was presented to this House on 9th March, be approved."—[Mr. Beechman.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.